
Class JB "R 3-2-5L 

Book LiL4Ui— 

Copyright N° 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 




MARTIN LUTHER. 



WITTENBERG 



AND 



ITS ASSOCIATION WITH THE REFORMATION 
OF GERMANY 



By 

REV. G. E. SEHLBREDE 



Illustrated 



INTRODUCTION BY 

Rev. W. L. McEWAN, D.D., LL.D., 

Pastor of the Third Presbyterian Church, 
Pittsburgh, Pa. 



THE JOHN C WINSTON CO., 
Philadelphia. 



Wittenberg. 



fuSRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

DEC 6 1906 

CLASS A XXc„ No." 

lie A.^^.0 
COPY B. 






COPTBIGHT, 1900 

By G. E. SEELBREDE. 



INTRODUCTION. 

There are some great men whose places are 
fixed in history. The passing of the centuries, 
though it has dimmed the outlines of their 
figures, has only increased the greatness of their 
fame. When the life and work of any man was 
connected with some great principle that is inter- 
woven with the progress and the liberty of the 
race, his name cannot be forgotten as long as 
history repeats its testimony. Those men who 
were great in their personal characters, and 
who, in the providence of God were associated 
with revolutions that liberated men from the 
bonds of error, superstition and tyranny, are 
most sure of being remembered. As the genera- 
tions follow each other, and men are further re- 
moved from the scenes and events, the names of 
the great leaders are still remembered, but their 
deeds and the results of their labors are told in 
a paragraph. The struggles through which they 
passed, the sufferings they endured, the growth 
of their heroic spirit of self-sacrifice, and all that 
creates a living interest in them as human beings 
with like passions as we, fall out of the world's 
knowledge. Therefore, there will always be the 

vn 



yiii INTRODUCTION. 

need of biography. The very best way to under- 
stand the movements of a century is often to 
read the lives of the leaders in whom the thoughts 
and the purposes of the people seemed to crys- 
talize until those leaders become the embodi- 
ment of the spirit of the age in which they 
lived. The children of each new generation 
ought to be encouraged to read the biographies 
of the great men of history. A better patriotism 
will be developed in our young men and young 
women when they understand the price that 
was paid by their fathers for the liberty which 
they enjoy. A stronger devotion to the truth 
will grow in those who know the precious lives 
that have been surrendered for the truth's sake. 
Protestant Christians need to remember the blood 
and fire through which the right to worship God 
according to the dictates of the private con- 
science was secured. In these days of ease and 
luxury, when spiritual things seem unreal, and 
a bland indifference to the time-honored creeds 
has settled down on men ; when to the minds 
of the majority there is nothing worth dying for ; 
when the spirit of compromise is regarded as 
wiser and better than the spirit of loyalty to con- 
victions ; when, indeed, the spirit of the age be- 
littles convictions themselves, there is need for 
men and women and the children whose charac- 
ters are being formed, to turn back and read 
of those who, " Through faith subdued king- 
doms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, 



INTRODUCTION. ix 

stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the vio- 
lence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out 
of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant 
in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens." 

It is like a moral tonic to read of the daunt- 
less courage that faltered not before the power 
of kings and emperors ; the faith that so trusted 
in God that it feared not the face of man ; the 
spirit that possessed the man who simply, 
proudly, yet humbly, could stand before the 
assembled powers of the world, temporal and 
ecclesiastical, and say, " Here I stand. I can- 
not do otherwise. God help me. Amen." This 
generation needs to read the life of Luther, and 
the life of Knox, and the life of Zwingli, and the 
life of Huss, and the lives of the Pilgrim fathers, 
and the lives of the missionaries who have, for 
Christ's sake and his Gospel, gone to the ends of 
the earth. Unless the children are brought face 
to face with the moral grandeur and the death- 
less courage of the world's heroes, great charac- 
ters will cease from the world, until, in the 
providence of God, some crisis again arises that 
requires men to choose principle rather than com- 
fort, and place spiritual realities above earthly 
riches, and be willing to die for the truth rather 
than to live in ease and error. 

The writer of this little book has told, in simple 
and interesting way, of his visit to Wittemburg. 
He describes the historic houses that stand in the 
little town. He takes us through the rooms of 



X INTRODUCTION. 

Luther's house and the College and the Church ; 
and as he lingers in each place gathers up in 
their order the events so fruitful in history that 
were associated with them. He makes the figure 
of Luther stand out in its rugged simplicity and 
greatness. He sets before us the conditions 
that prevailed in his day. He narrates the 
abuses and tyrannies that brought Luther into 
resistance and rebellion. He sets the figures of 
the day, — emperors, ecclesiastical rulers, scho- 
lars, hirelings, — in their places, and enables us 
to see the mighty struggle that was begun when 
this plain, earnest man took his position step by 
step, as his convictions grew in strength and 
clearness. He tells of Luther's marriage and his 
home life, of Luther's study and the books 
that he wrote, of Luther's battles and the 
victories that he won, of his daily life and his 
lamented death. One who reads the book con- 
taining the short and simple account of this 
great scholar, preacher, statesman and hero, who 
is rightly called " The glory of the.Keformation," 
will be led into the desire to read larger and 
fuller accounts of the history of those epoch- 
making times. 

William L. McEwan. 
Pittsburgh, Pa. 



DEDICATION. 

To my dear mother I affectionately dedicate 
this little volume. Any interest it may awaken 
in the scenes of her u Fatherland " will fulfill 
the wish of the writer. 



PKEFACE. 

In presenting this little book to the public, it 
is not the author's expectation to add to the 
general information of the world upon a sub- 
ject so vast as the Eeformation ; but rather to 
group around a central point some of the interest- 
ing events connected with one of the greatest 
lives ever lived out on earth. If the effort is in 
any measure successful, the author considers 
himself fully paid for his labor. 
Sincerely, 

G. E. Sehlbredb. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGE 

Martin Luther Frontispiece 

Luther's Home and University of Wittenberg 9 

Luther's Study 17 

The Palace Church 57 

Interior of Palace Church, Showing Tombs 
of Luther and Melancthon 127 ' 



WITTENBERG 



WITTENBERG-. 



CHAPTER I. 

We had spent a delightful week at Berlin, 
the beautiful Capital of the great German 
Empire, but the day of our departure came 
and we took the train at eight o'clock p. m., 
en route to Wittenberg. 

From my earliest childhood I had longed 
to see the home of Luther, the scene of so 
many spiritual struggles in his own life and 
the lives of others, before the dark mantle of 
Romanism was torn asunder to allow the full- 
day shining of the Gospel. Now, after many 
years of anxious, almost dream-like longing, 
we reached Wittenberg, just two hours' ride 
from Berlin. 

The rain was descending in torrents as we 
left the train, and we took a carriage to the 

3 



4 WITTENBERG. 

"Kaiser Hoff." We drove through the Elster 
Thor, up Collegian Strasse to the hotel, where 
we were met by the porter and the clerk. 

These officials — for the porter is a person- 
age of much importance in many hotels in 
Europe — silently assisted us with our lug- 
gage, and motioning us to follow, led us up 
a broad flight of stairs, opened the doors of 
two elegantly furnished rooms, deposited 
their burdens, and without saying a word left 
us in a cloud of bewilderment. 

The whole proceeding appeared very 
strange to us. What did it mean? Were 
they dumb, or did they think we were deaf ? 
We had not asked for prices, conditions or 
anything else that a tourist with a lean purse 
usually desires to know. Were these our 
rooms for the night or not ? If so, what were 
the rates? We waited; no one came. We 
grew impatient yet no one made an appear- 
ance to help us out of our difficulty. 

After a long anxious debate it was decided 
that the writer, who had a little knowledge 
of the German language, should go down and 
investigate. He did so, and discovered that 
the clerk and the porter had heard us speak- 



WITTENBERG. 5 

ing English to each other, thought we knew 
nothing of the German language, and as they 
could not speak English, they had silently, 
but very courteously shown us to our rooms. 
Yes, these were our rooms for the night. 
They were surprised that we had not retired, 
and hoped we would be comfortable. When 
they told us the rates, we assured them that 
we would be very comfortable indeed, for 
their charges were exceedingly small com- 
pared with like accommodations in hotels in 
this country or England. They also ex- 
plained to us that tourists from the United 
States and England who could neither speak 
nor understand the German language, often 
stopped there, and this was the courteous way 
they had of receiving them. 

One does not know how useful a little 
knowledge of the German tongue is until he 
makes a circular tour through that country. 
All things being now satisfactorily arranged, 
we retired for the night, leaving orders to be 
called at half-past six in the morning, and 
breakfast to be served at seven. 

It was raining hard next morning, but 
faithful to the order we were called at the 



6 WITTENBERG. 

proper time, and after breakfast, went out to 
visit the points of special interest. Before 
describing these points, however, it may be 
of interest to give a short sketch of the town 
itself. 

It is a picturesque town, about fifty miles 
southwest of Berlin, in the province of Sax- 
ony, Prussia, and is situated on the banks of 
the river Elbe which sparkles and gleams be- 
tween its willows and scrubby oaks. It is 
surrounded by a good and highly cultivated 
farming country, and has a population of 
fourteen thousand five hundred inhabitants, 
many of whom are employed in the large 
breweries, distilleries and tanneries. Others 
are engaged in the manufacture of woolen 
and linen goods; while the rest follow the 
vocation usually pursued by inhabitants of 
German villages and towns, store-keeping, 
farming, etc. 

It is a thoroughly old German town, visited 
by comparatively few American and English 
tourists, as it is out of the usual route of 
travel. It is long and narrow, and on account 
of the crowding of its population, covers 
much less area than a town of the same pop- 



WITTENBERG. f 

ulation would cover in the United States. 
This is true, however, of almost, if not all 
European cities. 

In the evening, Wittenberg settles down 
into the quiet of a country village, while the 
broad river glides peacefully on, giving to all 
around a sort of melancholy calmness. As 
the night advances, the lights disappear from 
the windows one by one, and at midnight 
darkness settles down upon the city for street 
lights are very scarce. 

Collegian Strasse is the principal street, 
and runs from the railroad station entirely 
through to the other end of the town. A 
tram-car, the only one which Wittenberg 
can boast of, runs on this street and furnishes 
a convenient way of going to and from the 
station. The streets are narrow, most of 
them very crooked, and have exceedingly nar- 
row side-walks. The houses are low, old 
looking, (probably as old as they look) built 
of stone, or wood plastered over with cement. 
They are roofed with tiles, grown beautifully 
green with age. Near the center of the town 
is the market platz in which are statues of 
Luther and Melancthon, but the important 



8 WITTENBERG. 

historic feature of the town is, that it was 
the cradle of the great German Reformation. 

The one place interesting above all else, is 
the old Augustinian Monastery where Luther 
spent so many years as a monk, and now used 
as a theological seminary. This building 
faces directly on Collegian Strasse. High 
walls run back from either end which connect 
it with the Luther House, thus enclosing a 
great court or garden. The building known 
as the Luther House, which the Elector, John 
Frederick (according to Mrs. Bundle Charles) 
gave to Luther as a wedding present, was used 
as the university of the convent as well as the 
dwelling of Luther. 

To enter this interesting place we pushed 
open a great wooden gate or door which is 
left unlocked, as the students of the seminary 
pass freely in and out. Upon entering we 
found ourselves in a road-like way wide 
enough to admit a wagon, with rooms of the 
convent on either side, and overhead. This 
" way " is paved with rough stone and leads 
into the court. Just across the court is the 
Luther House, a plain structure built of 
stones, with a long front, near the center of 




V. 



WITTENBERG. 9 

which is a tower with a winding stairway 
leading to the floors above, and far up in the 
top is a large bell which tolls the hours of 
recitation for the seminary students. This 
bell is very old and is claimed to be the same 
that hung there in Luther's time, tolling the 
hours for the monks. 

We passed through the court, following a 
beautiful walk bordered with flowers, until 
we reached the door of this historic building, 
and in answer to our ring were met by a good- 
natured, stout German woman of middle age ; 
after informing her that we were tourists, she 
at once began to show us over the house. The 
first, or ground floor has nothing of special 
interest ; so we ascended the winding stair to 
the floor above, the way being so dark as to 
make it necessary for us to carry lighted 
candles. 

The stone steps of this stairway are much 
worn by the many feet that have pressed upon 
them since they were placed there almost 
four centuries ago ; but just a few years after 
Columbus crossed the ocean and discovered a 
new continent. As we ascended, our minds 
ran back over the pages of history. To this 



10 WITTENBERG. 

little old town, now of no great commercial 
importance, and to this university founded 
by the Elector Frederick, Luther who was 
to make the name of Wittenburg famous 
through all time, was called from Erfurt in 
1508, to fill the chair of Philosophy. He 
would have preferred Theology, but as God 
seemed to have called him to another position 
he entered upon his duties with all the vast 
energy of his being. 

In connection with these duties he con- 
tinued the study of Hebrew and Greek, which 
was to be so beneficial to him during those 
ten months' imprisonment in the Wartburg 
castle, and from which the world was to reap 
rich blessings. 

At the first landing of the stair a door leads 
into the vestibule which contains a drinking 
goblet of Luther's ; Catherine Von Bora's ro- 
sary which she used when a nun at Mmptsch, 
Saxony ; a crucifixion scene, and other paint- 
ings. 

We passed through this vestibule to the 
opposite side and entered through another 
door, Luther's study. What emotions fill 
one's bosom as he stands in this room! We 



WITTENBERG. H 

wonder if this is indeed the place in which 
he locked himself, according to tradition, for 
three days with nothing to eat but bread and 
salt when he was writing his commentary on 
the twenty-second Psalm, and in which Mrs. 
Luther found him in deep meditation at the 
close of the third day when a locksmith had 
forced open the door. 

The room is large, with low ceiling, and 
poorly furnished. It is said to be just as 
Luther left it in 1546, to make a last journey 
to his old home at Eisleben, never to again re- 
turn to this room ; but to be borne back in a 
few days by loving hands and laid to rest in 
the Palace Church at the other end of the 
town. 

There is the same old door made of plain 
heavy boards, swinging inward on its rusty 
hinges. The same furniture is there, stand- 
ing just as it was when he occupied this 
apartment. This is the same floor, now much 
worn by the feet of many tourists and the rav- 
ages of insects. There against the wall oppo- 
site the door through which we entered, is a 
little old low book-shelf still holding some of 
his books and just above this is a medallion 



12 WITTENBERG. 

portrait of Luther himself. In the corner 
opposite the window stands a great, curious 
German stove. It is eight feet high, overlaid 
with green tile upon which are many repre- 
sentations of historic groups and scenes in 
beautiful bas-relief. This wonderful thing 
looked more like a miniature house of three 
or four stories, than like a stove. It rests on 
a stone foundation, and is at the left of the 
room. 

Overlooking the court is a window set deep 
in the thick walls. By this window in the 
recess or alcove, formed by the thickness of 
the wall, are two seats made of plain pine 
boards, arranged like chairs facing each 
other. The space beneath was formerly used 
by Luther as a case for his books, some of 
which are there to-day well preserved, but 
dusty and smelling from age. This is said 
to have been his favorite place to sit in the 
evening hours with his wife Catherine, when 
he allowed himself time from his many duties 
to look upon the garden just below, where he 
delighted to work cultivating and studying 
his flowers. At the time of our visit, the 
walks were nicely kept, the shrubbery taste- 



WITTENBERG. 13 

fully trimmed, and the flowers were bloom- 
ing brightly, though it was late in the season. 
The most interesting object in the study, 
perhaps, is an old table which stands near 
the center, and at which Luther wrote so 
many of his works. 

This table is very much worm-eaten; (the 
dark places in the picture show the inroads 
which the little destroyers have made.) In- 
deed, all the furniture and even the floor has 
suffered much. These are the only surviv- 
ing pieces of furniture in this apartment 
which was once occupied by the mightiest 
man of the sixteenth century. On the wall 
is the signature (written in German) of 
Peter the Great, the then Czar of Russia. 
It was written with a piece of chalk by his 
own hand, and is protected by a covering of 
glass. On the floor are rugs and pieces of 
carpet, placed there to protect the boards 
from the feet of the many tourists who an- 
nually visit this place, so careful are the 
Germans to preserve everything connected 
with the life and interests of Luther. 

No bygone king has his crown more care- 
fully guarded through feelings of reverence, 



14: WITTENBERG. 

than are guarded these old pieces of furniture, 
worthless in themselves. A king's crown 
might be stolen for its wealth of jewels and 
gold, thus needing an iron cage and an armed 
guard. The tourist looks upon it, admires it, 
passes on and forgets it and even him who 
wore it; but no tourist with even a small 
knowledge of this great man, who was greater 
than kings and yet the poorest of men, can 
stand by those poor, plain, half decayed relics, 
coming from that period which marks the 
transition from the age of darkness to the age 
of light, and leaving them, ever forget them. 

Surely we owe a deep debt of gratitude to 
those who thus jealously keep these historic 
relics which are almost sacred, and which 
speak to us of other centuries, and are as- 
sociated with events of such vast moment as 
to turn, as on a pivot, the whole history of 
the world. 

From this room Luther sent forth his com- 
mentaries on the Psalms, Galatians and other 
parts of the Bible. Tracts on the Lord's 
Prayer and the Ten Commandments ; " The 
Reformation of Religion," and " The Baby- 
lonish Captivity," also almost innumerable 



WITTENBERG. 15 

other works, including many of his hymns, 
some of which are so popular in Germany 
even to this day. But of all his writings, 
those which struck the keynote of the Refor- 
mation and sent it thrilling through all 
Europe, were his ninety five theses, which he 
nailed to the doors of the Mew Church (now 
the Schloss Kirche) on All Saints Eve, 
October 31st, 1517. 

How much then, went from this little bare 
room, from the house and from this convent 
to change the destinies of the world! How 
powerfully, here, did this German monk 
wield the weapon placed in his hands by God, 
to shatter the bulwarks of the papacy, and to 
give the true light to the nations. 

As one stands here where many of the great 
and wise have stood, and thinks of that long 
conflict which raged in the heart of the great 
reformer as he sat there by that window, 
stood by that stove or bent over his Greek and 
Hebrew Bible at that table, searching for 
light and yet striving to remain faithful to 
the Church of Home (for it was many years 
before he could completely break the chain 
which bound him to that church) and how, 



16 WITTENBERG. 

at last, he was FORCED by that church to 
make a decided stand, he more fully than 
ever appreciates the power of God to take a 
creature from the humblest and poorest of his 
fold, and make him an agent of great useful- 
ness to mankind as well as much glory to 
himself, and how He sometimes takes the 
weak things of the world to confound the 
mighty. 

What could have been more powerful, as 
seen by the natural eye, than the Roman 
Church backed by the power of Emperor 
Charles Fifth, when Luther sat in this room ? 
What could have seemed more weak in com- 
parison, than that poor, sometimes pennyless 
monk, often deserted by his dearest friends ? 
And yet they, Luther and the Pope, repre- 
sented two great struggling powers each 
striving for the mastery. The one was backed 
by the most powerful Emperor of the day; 
by all the power and grandeur, all the wealth 
and ecclesiastical control of the Roman 
Church, with its ritual, its priests, bishops, 
cardinals; its Pope and its superstitions. 
The other, one man without money or politi- 
cal influence, excommunicated from the 



WITTENBERG. 17 

Church and under the curse of the Pope, but 
a roan who rested upon the arm of God, and 
was guided by His word and the Holy Spirit ; 
yet;— 

"Right is right, since God is God, and right the 
day must win." 

and Luther stands before the world to-day, 
after almost four hundred years of scrutiny, 
as the victor of that mighty struggle. The 
world had long been overshadowed by the 
dark night of papacy with all its accompany- 
ing evils; but suddenly, as a bolt from the 
cloudless heavens, there shone forth a flame 
that scattered the darkness of night and set 
the world aglow with a new light. A man of 
humble birth had stepped out upon the scene ; 
had caused that flame to flash, and made a 
more lasting impress for good and a more 
distinctively individual mark upon the his- 
tory of mankind, than any other individual 
since apostolic times. That man was Martin 

Luther. 
2 



CHAPTEE II. 

The university was founded by Frederick 
the Wise, in 1505. Luther was called to it 
as a professor in 1508, but scarcely had three 
years elapsed when he was sent to Rome. 
He served as Town Preacher a great part of 
this time, and preached with such power as to 
" bear like a torrent on the minds of his hear- 
ers/' who drank in his words as the drv and 
parched ground drinks in the autumn 
showers ; or as one, having fed on husks, sits 
down eagerly to a table well spread with the 
fruit from which the husks have been re- 
moved. And was it not because their souls 
had been fed on the dry husks of Scholastic 
learning alone, that they were starving for 
the knowledge of the true way ? Was it not 
because their hearts were thirsting for the 
Water of Life which had been turned from 
its channel by the corrupt Church of Rome, 
that they drank so eagerly of the showers fall- 

18 



WITTENBERG. 19 

ing upon them as the words of truth swelled 
from the heart and lips of the speaker ? Aye, 
was it not because they had been robbed of 
the word of truth and life, that they so read- 
ily responded to him who brought it back to 
them? 

Luther was sent to Rome to settle, or lay 
before the Pope, some disputes which had 
arisen among the convents of his order in 
Germany. He started out with high hopes 
and much joy, feeling that he must be made 
better, more holy and righteous by a visit to 
the Holy City, According to some author- 
ities he walked the whole way barefoot and 
penniless, while Erasmus, with whom he was 
to come in conflict later on, made the same 
journey with ease and pleasure, " with horse 
and luxury." 

On his way to Rome Luther was suddenly 
taken sick at a convent of Benedictine monks 
in Lombardy. It is supposed by many that 
poison had been put in his food by the monks 
whom he had severely reprimanded for their 
extravagant and sensuous lives, which con- 
trasted so thoroughly with his own simple and 
pure manner of living. He removed from 



20 WITTENBERG. 

this convent to another and more safe abode, 
and soon recovering, proceeded on his way to 
Kome. 

All along the journey he found corruption 
in church and convent to increase, yet he ap- 
proached the city with great joy for he 
thought, surely within her walls all must be 
pure and holy, for was it not the seat of the 
Holy Church? Had not Paul and Peter 
been persecuted and slain there? Were not 
their bones now sepultured within the incom- 
plete building of St. Peter's? Had not the 
blood of many martyrs consecrated it and 
made it holy ? Was it not the home of the 
successors of that apostle to whom Christ had 
given the keys of the kingdom of heaven ? " 
With such feelings he came within sight of 
the imperial walls, and falling upon his knees 
with clasped hands lifted toward heaven, he 
cried out with reverence and joy : " I hail 
thee, Holy Eome ; made holy by the blood of 
martyrs." 

Thus Luther approached the papal city, 
with humble spirit and eager, anxious soul 
longing for more light, more holiness : and 
yet Wicelius, in his letter to Erasmus, under 



WITTENBERG. 21 

date of March, 1533, referring to Luther 
says : " It is not Hannibal now who is knock- 
ing at the gate of Rome, but the devil who is 
trying to destroy the Christian faith." 

But whatever Wicelius thought of Luther, 
Luther soon changed his opinion of Rome. 
How different he found it from what he ex- 
pected ! Instead of being holy, and breath- 
ing the very atmosphere of heaven, he found it 
a pool of corruption reeking with vileness that 
beggars description. Holy as the city must 
be, according to Roman belief, consecrated as 
it was by the most sacred relics of the Church, 
by the bones of the sainted dead and the 
presence of the sacred infallible head of the 
Church, the Pope, Luther found it in reality 
the most corrupt place he had ever known: 
a veritable cesspool of corruption. " In 
sacredness he had thought of it as Jerusalem, 
but in wickedness he had found it as Baby- 
lon." 

About eighteen hundred and fifty years ago 
Paul made his visit to Athens, a city wholly 
given over to idolatry, and when he would 
have preached to the people of the true God, 
they called him a babbler and turned again to 



22 WITTENBERG. 

their philosophy and idolatrous superstition, 
while Paul left their city never to return. 
When Luther entered the city of Rome and 
began to see farther into the mysteries of the 
Roman Church, he found idolatry and cor- 
ruption even worse and more degrading, and 
indeed more widespread than that which the 
apostle had found at Athens. 

Athens had only her philosophy and culture 
to guide her, and this had led her farther 
astray. Rome had the true light, the word 
of God in her grasp, but rather than send it 
out to enlighten the world and lead it to 
Christ, she chose to hide it in her cloisters, 
chain it to the walls of her convents and 
cover it over with her formalism and tradi- 
tion, until it was all but lost to view ; and to- 
gether with the hiding of the Scriptures she 
also fostered the spread of ignorance among 
the multitudes. So successful was she in 
this, that Erasmus said the monks and friars 
were wiser in their generation than most 
people knew, for they were fully aware that 
the spread of knowledge would be fatal to 
their dominion* 

In the very heart of the Church Luther 



WITTENBERG. 23 

found little but unbelief, mockery and im- 
morality. The priests themselves, many of 
them, considered their religion and their pro- 
fession a hollow sham, even as the heathen of 
this same Rome in the time of Nero consid- 
ered their profession, their religion and their 
gods hollow, meaningless mockeries. We 
must however, allow for this difference in 
favor of the age of Nero; the heathen had 
little opportunity to receive the light ; but the 
priest of Luther's day had, or could have had 
the full overflowing light of the gospel to di- 
rect him aright. 

When Luther would have brushed aside 
all this formalism and falseness, and pointed 
out the way to the one God who ruled above 
priest, pope and church, these corrupt and 
immoral idolators would have none of it, but 
stopped their ears; closed their eyes to the 
light; continued in their sins, and finally 
laid their persecuting hands upon him who 
would have been their guide, until, as Paul 
left Athens, Luther also left the fold of the 
Roman Church. 

But what a vast difference there was be- 
tween this church of pretended apostolic sue- 



24 WITTENBERG. 

cession at Rome in the sixteenth century, and 
the real apostolic church at Jerusalem in the 
first century. In the apostolic church there 
were purity, sincerity, and simplicity. In 
the papal church there were gorgeousness, 
ritualism, worldly officialism and corruption. 
It was this great contrast between the 
church of the first century and that of the 
sixteenth that quickened both Luther and 
Knox to a return to primitive simplicity and 
purity. 

The war-loving Julius the Second occupied 
the pontifical chair, and instead of depending 
upon penticostal outpourings, or more of the 
workings of the Holy Spirit to conquer the 
world, he strove to conquer it, or as much of 
it as possible, in his own way (by force of 
arms) not for Christ but for the Church of 
Rome. Strange succession this, to the hum- 
ble fisherman who trod the shores of Galilee ; 
who gave up all his worldly possessions for 
the sake of his Lord ; who was commanded by 
the Master to put up his sword into its place ; 
who went empty-handed and did his work in 
the " name of Jesus of Nazareth ;" and who 
suffered much in his Master's cause and for 
his Master's sake. 



WITTENBERG. 25 

Cardinals, bishops, priests and monks, 
were even more degraded than the Pope. 
Luther saw the cardinals with their palaces 
and mistresses ; he saw the bishops with their 
riches, their grandeur, their indulgence; he 
saw the priests with their diseased forms and 
bloated faces which pointed clearly to a life 
of sin and dissipation. But in this city of 
ecclesiastical corruption ; unknown, un- 
thought-of beyond the walls of Erfurt and 
"Wittenberg, walked a man who was soon to 
revolutionize the Christian church. 

Sadly he walked the streets of the city of 
which he had thought and dreamed as the 
very nursery of holiness. He visited all the 
sacred relics, did penance before all the holy 
altars, worshiped before the portraits or 
statues of all the saints, climbed on his hands 
and knees (according to tradition) the Sancta- 
Scala, reputed to have been a part of Pilate's 
stairway which had been brought from Jeru- 
salem to Rome. An indulgence from penance 
for one thousand years for this act of devotion 
was to be to all pilgrims who ascended this 
stair on their knees. 

He was in this act, faithfully seeking for 



26 WITTENBERG. 

light, when a voice as if from heaven seemed 
to whisper to him : " The just shall live by 
faith." He immediately arose, turned about 
and bravely walked down the steps up which 
he had so laboriously ascended. He went 
away a free man; but with what a different 
opinion of it all did he return to his quiet 
home at Wittenberg. Disappointed and sad 
as he was by what he saw, he said he would 
not have failed having seen Rome for one 
thousand florins, for if he had never seen 
it he would always have feared and doubted 
whether or not he had done an injustice to 
the Pope, but, he said, " as it is I am quite 
satisfied now on this point." 



CHAPTER III. 

Soon after his return to Wittenberg he 
was made a Doctor of Divinity, and called 
to the chair of theology, although he was only 
twenty-nine years of age. He protested at 
first against being put into such a responsible 
position; but Staupitz, the vicar-general of 
the Augustinian order in Germany, and who 
had been the first theological professor in the 
university of Wittenberg, taking Luther by 
the arm led him out into this very garden, 
and there, sitting under one of those ancient 
looking trees, told him that he must accept 
the chair of theology offered him by the uni- 
versity. Luther finally agreed, but being 
without money he went to Leipsic to receive 
from the Electors' treasury the funds neces- 
sary for the promotion. 

He received his degree October 18, 1512, 
and was shortly after called to the university 
of Erfurt ; but in fifteen months he returned 

27 



28 WITTENBERG. 

to Wittenberg university and entered into 
his work as professor of theology. In this 
position, thus thrust upon him, though it 
seemed at the time he was first called to 
Wittenberg that this was the chair he desired, 
in the oath which he took promising to dis- 
charge his duties to the very best of his ability, 
he felt the call of his Sovereign, of the univer- 
sity, of the Pope, and above all the rest, the 
call of his God. In accepting it he was urged 
to a plane far above that of the narrow limits 
of monasticism and mere scholasticism, and 
from that time he took a broader and a truer 
stand, and that too, on a surer foundation than 
he could otherwise have done. He became 
from that hour " the armed champion of the 
gospel/' and he knew right well how to use 
those arms which were thus put into his 
hands. 

In his oath he declared that he would faith- 
fully defend the gospel and firmly stand for 
the truth. This promise he fully redeemed 
in the pulpit ; with his pen ; by lifting up his 
voice in councils before kings, rulers and 
ecclesiastics, as well as in his modest lecture 
room. His one great aim was to dispel the 



WITTENBERG. 29 

darkness which had fallen so heavily upon 
the world (for which he felt the Church was 
largely responsible) and to send forth the 
light as it is found in Christ Jesus. 

While all the world was excited over the 
discovery of a new continent where kings, 
rulers, nobles and adventurers were seeking 
lands and fortunes, this poor monk, often 
suffering from poverty, in this room of this 
old convent, was wrestling in the deep laby- 
rinths of Roman formalism, idolatry and 
superstition, with questions of far greater im- 
portance than those in which the nobles of 
the earth were engaged. While they were 
seeking after the treasures of earth, he was 
searching for the deep things of God, and 
striving to discover the truths of the word of 
God. While they were unconsciously pre- 
paring a land of refuge for the persecuted 
of the world, he was poring over his Greek 
and Hebrew Bible, and preparing therefrom 
a system of theology which would soon startle 
the world. 

Slowly the light broke upon him, but he 
groped his way steadily through the gloom, 
following the first faint ray which led him 



30 WITTENBERG. 

nearer and nearer the truth, until the dark- 
ness at last vanished, and he stood out in the 
broad open day of the gospel. 

Adjoining this study is a large room used 
as a sort of picture gallery, which contains 
paintings by eminent artists, representing the 
Diet of Worms, Luther's betrothal (by 
Cranach, who was present at the wedding 
of Luther), Charles Fifth at Luther's grave, 
and many other works representing scenes 
and incidents connected with the life of the 
reformer. 

According to our guide, this room was 
used as a dining-room by the monks until the 
latter part of 1524, when all except Luther 
left the convent, which thus ceased to exist. 
In December of the same year Luther sent 
the keys to the Elector who invited him to 
remain in the building which was now given 
to the university. 

Passing again through the study from this 
gallery, we proceed to what is known as the 
" corner room." It is long and hall-like, and 
contains the portraits of Luther, his wife 
Catherine, and others, also a glass case in 
which are old translations of the Bible. This 



WITTENBERG. 31 

room was used as a chapel by the monks, and 
the most interesting object in it is the high, 
rickety old pulpit in which Luther so often 
stood to preach to monks, students and many 
others who gathered there to hear him. An 
old stove stands on one side of the room, and 
some statuary on the other. There is less, 
perhaps here, than in the other rooms to di- 
rectly remind one of the great man whose 
voice so often filled this chapel, but the whole 
atmosphere breathes of his presence, though 
almost four centuries have passed since his 
voice was heard for the last time within these 
walls. 

Connected with this room is another much 
the same in size, containing several paintings 
by the elder Cranach who was a citizen of 
Wittenberg in the time of Luther, and who 
has preserved on canvas the likeness of most 
of the reformers who were contemporary with 
him. There are several glass cases which 
contain medals, printed pamphlets and books, 
autographs of Luther, Melancthon, Fred- 
erick the Wise, Duke George, John the Con- 
stant, and many other notable persons who 
were contemporary with Luther, 



32 WITTENBERG. 

In another room is a model of the statue of 
Luther, erected in his honor at Worms, This 
chamber also contains the first editions of 
many of Luther's works, (manuscripts, etc.) 
kept carefully protected from dust and the 
touch of tourists, by glass cases. 

Perhaps the most interesting place in the 
whole building, if we except the study, is 
Luther's lecture room. Here is an old 
Cathedra which he occupied while lecturing. 
There are the same old benches — much cut 
up by the knives of the boys of that day — 
where the students sat to hear their beloved 
teacher as he went through the Psalms; the 
Epistle to the Romans and other parts of the 
Scriptures. 

What an effect those lectures must have 
had upon the lives of the young men who sat 
at his feet before and after the clouds had 
vanished from his eyes. In this lecture room 
he unfolded to them the treasures of God's 
word, showing clearly that remission of sins 
was not the result of meritorious work, but 
that it was only through faith in Christ 
Jesus that the sinner could be saved. He 
was soon rewarded by seeing many of his 



WITTENBERG. 33 

young disciples make public profession of 
their belief in this doctrine; and how this 
knowledge, that some of the seed he was sow- 
ing had fallen on good ground and was al- 
ready producing good fruit, must have com- 
forted him amid all his trials and difficulties. 

Some years later, after Luther's marriage, 
a terrible plague broke out in Wittenberg 
which caused most of the professors and 
students to flee from the university. He was 
advised to go too, but he bravely remained 
to attend to the sick, and wrote a friend that 
" his house had been turned into a veritable 
hospital as he had taken in several persons 
whom no one would shelter or care for." 
This came at a time when he was very poor ; 
and yet even in this poverty he sold some of 
his silver plate to raise money for one of the 
students who desired to go home and thus 
escape the danger of the plague. 

Printers often offered to pay Luther for 
his work, but he always refused them, say- 
ing: "Since God had enabled him to send 
those works forth, they should go free as the 
light of heaven." And yet, at this very 

juncture, he cried out ; " My house has been 
3 



34 WITTENBERG. 

drained of its last penny." He had been 
obliged to pawn three silver goblets which 
some friends had given him, that he might, 
with the proceeds, procure the bare neces- 
saries of life. This shows the nobleness, the 
unselfishness and the self-sacrificing spirit 
of him who would take no earthly reward for 
doing his duty toward God and man. He 
had been blest with power and ability to do 
the work, and he would not receive payment 
from the hand of man for performing it. 

During this awful plague, he supported 
forty-two persons for some time out of his 
poverty, but he trusted in the Lord, whom he 
believed would provide. 

For many years before he came to "Witten- 
berg, indulgences had been sold by the 
Roman Church. The right of the pope to 
grant these through the priests, was not ques- 
tioned; but the Electors of Saxony would 
never permit them to be sold within the 
bounds of their provinces. 

This selling of indulgences, was the pay- 
ment on the part of the people, of certain 
sums of money to the priests for which, on 
the authority of the pope, was granted a com- 



WITTENBERG. 35 

plete or partial remission of the temporal or 
purgatorial punishment still due the sinner 
after the guilt of the sin had been remitted 
by penance. It was not, at first, granted 
for unforgiven sins; it was not a remission 
of sins; nor did it furnish a means whereby 
the one granted the indulgence could escape 
the eternal punishment which is due to mor- 
tal sin; neither did it avail for sins to be 
committed in the future. Sin must have 
been repented of before an indulgence could 
benefit the sinner, and then it availed only 
under proper conditions to remit, or shorten 
the time of the soul's torment in purgatory. 

At the close of the fifteenth century this 
assumed power of the pope began to be much 
abused, and was often used as a means of 
gain not only for the Church, but also for the 
priests and popes themselves. Any pretext 
was used to force upon the people the need 
of purchasing indulgences in order that the 
treasury of the Church or that of the pope 
might be replenished. 

The indulgences were the granting of the 
superabundant works and merits of saints 
which had accumulated through the cen- 



36 WITTENBERG. 

turies, to those who could not, or cannot ful- 
fill the requirements of the Church for their 
own salvation. 

Julius Second, in order to fill his treasury, 
depleted by his many wars undertaken to 
extend the temporal power of the church, 
had used the idea of building the cathedral 
of St. Peter's at Rome, as a covering or re- 
ceptacle for the remains of Peter and Paul, 
the apostles of Jesus Christ. The money 
paid by the people was to be devoted to this 
purpose and would thus serve two ends ; first, 
the remission of purgatorial punishment for 
those who paid, and second, it would assist in 
furnishing a suitable resting place for the sa- 
cred bones of saints. The people responded 
heartily to this appeal, paid liberally for 
indulgences, and soon filled the coffers of the 
warlike Julius. 

The height of abuse of this pretended 
power of the pope was reached by Leo. X., 
whose extravagance made it needful to re- 
plenish in some way, his empty treasury. 
To do this he used as his agents many men- 
dicant or begging friars, a class of men who 
pretended that they had no other means of 



WITTENBERG. 37 

living than that of begging; and of whom 
Erasmus asks the very pertinent question; 
" Why should they live at all ? What is the 
use of these mendicant vagabonds ? " But 
Leo X., found very active use for them. His 
treasury was empty; it must be filled; 
and so he sent these begging wanderers 
through Germany granting indulgences not 
only for sins already committed, but for sins 
to be committed in the future. All this was 
granted without repentance on the part of the 
sinner. 

Leo's most notorious agent in this business 
was John Tetzel who, in 1516, engaged in 
the nefarious work. He went about from 
town to town accompanied by fifers and bell 
ringers, and a whole retinue following behind 
him " like a procession of priests and priest- 
esses of Cybele." Knowing that the Electors 
would not allow his traffic in Saxony, he went 
to Juterbock, a town four miles northeast 
of Wittenberg, in the province of Branden- 
burg, and setting up his red cross, opened his 
sales. He sold indulgences not only for the 
remission of sins already committed, but for 
crimes the vilest and most horrible yet to be 



38 WITTENBERG. 

committed. If one wished to commit the 
most heinous offence he need only pay and he 
would receive absolution beforehand, and 
need have no fear of eternal punishment nor 
even of purgatory. 

He had stated at Annaberg, that " on ac- 
count of the great piety of the German people 
he had reduced the price," and now at Juter- 
bock he announced that by paying eight 
ducats (about sixteen dollars) a man might 
commit murder and have no fear of eternal 
retribution. 

It is very easy to see what sort of influ- 
ence such a doctrine would have upon a peo- 
ple, the greater number of whom thought the 
pope infallible and clothed with real, rather 
than with visionary apostolical power. Tetzel 
went even farther than this ; he declared that 
for sums of money proportionate to the 
wealth of the giver, the souls of relatives and 
friends still in purgatory would be released. 
For twelve groats (a little less than one dol- 
lar, or just ninety-six cents) one could de- 
liver his father from the torments of pur- 
gatory. 

" The most holy father," Leo X., had de- 



WITTENBERG. 39 

creed it, and he, Tetzel, the pope's apostle and 
faithful servant who carried with him what 
he affirmed to be a feather from the wing of 
the Angel Gabriel (but which was in reality 
from the wing of a goose) declared it, and 
how could it be otherwise than true ? " No 
sooner," he cried, " does the money strike 
the bottom of the chest than the soul con- 
fined in purgatory for whose release it is 
given, flies straight up into heaven." 

He even went so far as to say that he had 
saved more souls through indulgences than 
the Apostle Peter ever saved; and that he 
would not exchange his place for that of the 
great Apostle. He showed the same spear 
with which the Eoman soldier smote the 
Saviour's side. He carried with him a 
great cross on which was a crown of thorns ; 
the very nails which had pierced the Sav- 
iour's feet and hands, and sometimes upon 
this cross was seen the flowing blood of 
Jesus. 

Multitudes of people believed all this; 
even as many to-day who pray to the statuary 
in Notre Dame,Paris, believe that the statue 
of one of the Saints which turns so as to face 



40 WITTENBERG. 

first one way and then the other, is moved by 
some miraculous power, instead of some inge- 
nious mechanism of priestcraft. 

While Tetzel was thus busily engaged in 
this sacrilegious work at Juterbock, Luther 
was quietly attending to his priestly office 
in the Wittenberg convent One day he was 
sitting in his confessional when some citi- 
zens of the town came to him for absolution. 
They freely confessed their sins, and were 
counseled, reproved and urged to repentance 
and a holier life. To his great surprise 
they told him that they were going to continue 
in their sins. They had " purchased a par- 
don," they said," from the pope through his 
agent, Tetzel, and by it they were permitted 
to go right on in their sins just as before." 
They had paid a price and had secured par- 
don beforehand for sins they desired it) com- 
mit in the future. But, in spite of their 
argument and statement of papal pardon, 
Luther's answer to them all was : " Except 
ye repent, ye shall all perish." 

The people were confounded. In Juter- 
bock, only four miles away, a representative 
of the pope, acting under his direction and 



WITTENBERG. 41 

with his authority, declared that the remis- 
sion of sins could be purchased with gold with- 
out the least shadow of repentance ; while 
here in Wittenberg a priest of the most 
holy Koman church declared most emphatic- 
ally that the remission of sins could not be 
purchased with money, and that it could 
only be gained by the true repentance of the 
sinner. 

There must certainly be an inconsistency 
somewhere when two priests, under the same 
infallible pope, proclaimed principles and 
doctrines so diametrically opposed to each 
other. In their bewilderment many returned 
to Tetzel and told him of Luther's declar- 
ation. When he heard it he flew into a 
great rage. He swore, he Taved, he threat- 
ened. But though many were misled by the 
sale of indulgences, many others, earnest peo- 
ple, rejoiced to find one man in all Christen- 
dom who fearlessly spoke out what was echoed 
in their own hearts. 



CHAPTER IV. 

The world was changing. She was awaken- 
ing out of her long, drowsy stupor; but the 
church, the monks, the priests and the pope, 
and even the people who were largely instru- 
mental in bringing about that change, did 
not understand it. Threats and curses might 
beat that change back for a moment, but it 
would soon burst out with greater power and 
fury than ever. Germany was awakening to 
a new life ; and as the " Bull " of Leo a lit- 
tle later made Luther's party stronger, so 
now the threats and curses of Tetzel, without 
argument or satisfactory explanation, forced 
Luther to a bolder and more open expres- 
sion of his opinions, and won for him 
many friends. He knew now, that he must 
take an open and decided stand for the prin- 
ciples he had proclaimed, and resolved to 
attack in a public manner the indulgence 

traffic. 

42 



WITTENBERG. 43 

The university had been founded just 
twelve years. Luther had been a teacher, 
with slight interruption, within her walls 
for nine years. Pope Julius II, had passed 
away, not able even in his dying moments 
to lay aside his ambitious schemes, but cried 
out with his last breath : " Out of Italy, 
French ! Out, Alphonso of Este ! " 

Leo X, who succeeded Julius, was posing 
before the world as the successor of the Apos- 
tle Peter. The first day of November, known 
as All-Saints' Day, was drawing near. On 
that day the New Church of Wittenberg, 
now the Schloss Kirche, erected and enriched 
with many sacred relics by the Elector of 
Saxony, was to be thrown open. All who 
worshiped in it during that day were to be 
granted indulgences. As this had been pro- 
claimed through all Saxony for many months 
past (Luther himself helped to proclaim it), 
great crowds were expected to gather within 
her walls. 

Luther saw in this a splendid opportunity 
of openly challenging, for public debate, 
the power of the pope or any of his represent- 
atives to grant indulgences for money. The 



44: WITTENBERG. 

reformer had not yet cast off his allegiance 
to Rome. Indeed he considered himself one 
of the most loyal members of that Church, 
and desired only an open debate in accord- 
ance with the custom of the day, upon a sub- 
ject of so vital importance. 

Others beside Luther were anxious to get 
at the root of this subject and penetrate into 
the mysterious power of the pope. They 
were anxious also, that the poisonous vine of 
priestly corruption which had twined its 
deadly tendrils about the Church until all 
truth had been hidden, should be torn away 
and the truth be again revealed to the world. 
But Luther was the only man in all Germany, 
and indeed in all Europe since the days of 
Huss, with courage sufficiently strong to lay 
hold of that vine and lay bare that truth. 
Accordingly he wrote ninety-five theses, and 
on the evening of October 31, 1517, he fear- 
lessly nailed them to the doors of this church, 
which was to be opened with so much trump- 
ery on the morrow. 

In these propositions the authority of the 
pope was not attacked. An open rupture 
with the Church of Rome was not meditated. 



WITTENBERG. 45 

It was not the Church he was attacking, but 
the corruption which had been thrown around 
and grown up within it. Indeed he desired 
to take the part of the pope in the 
church's defence. He ascribed everything 
corrupt in the Church to unscrupulous priests 
who practised these abominations without 
the knowledge of the pope, or in defiance of 
him. This was Luther's position. He de- 
sired to make it known to the world, and as 
we stood by that church we almost felt that 
we could see the great reformer with his 
manuscript in one hand and a hammer in the 
other, approach those doors and calmly pro- 
ceed to nail up those theses. 

Many who came to worship on that memor- 
able first day of November, 1517, expect- 
ing the promised indulgence, bore back with 
them the substance of those theses, and even 
dared, thereafter, to question the power and 
prerogatives of the pope. 

The theses ran with incredible speed 
over the land, and struck a chord in the 
hearts of many that were waiting for a master's 
touch and set those chords vibrating with 
such sweetness and power that they continued 



46 WITTENBERG. 

to respond until the vibrations of ten thousand 
souls sent the papal domination of Europe, 
and indeed of the world, toppling to its fall. 

While Luther was nailing these theses, 
the " banner of the reformation," to the 
doors of this church in Wittenberg, God 
was preparing other instruments in distant 
parts of the world for a great and glorious 
work. In the little Scottish town of Had- 
dington on Tyne, a few miles south of Edin- 
burgh, John Knox, a boy of twelve, who was 
to be one of those instruments, or agents, was 
attending school, and although all uncon- 
scious of the life before him he was thus 
fitting himself for his work as the great 
reformer of Scotland. 

About this time, also, the fires of per- 
secution in Scotland began to burn anew, 
and to leave their dark and bloody marks 
upon the already blackened pages of Eomish 
history. These fires had first been kindled 
in 1411, at Perth, to burn John Kesby. They 
were now soon to burst forth in many lands 
and rage for many years with more severity 
than ever. 

Already in 1487, just four years after 



WITTENBERG. 47 

Luther's birth, Pope Innocent Eighth, issued 
a " bull " against the Waldensians of France, 
and sent an army of eighteen thousand sol- 
diers to hunt down and slay those humble 
Christians whose only crime was to worship 
God according to the teachings of the Scrip- 
tures. 

In 1489, just six years after Luther's birth, 
and the very year in which Rome was using 
her severest measures in Dauphiny, William 
Farel, the " father of the French reforma- 
tion" was born. He was to be led by Rome 
for many years through dark and mysterious 
ways, but was finally to come out into the 
true light and carry the gospel into many 
parts of France and Switzerland. 

In 1493, Lefevre, who was to take a prom- 
inent part in the reformation, was teach- 
ing Divinity in the University of Paris, and 
just as Luther took his chair of Philosophy 
in Wittenberg, the dawn of a brighter day 
was preparing for France; and in 1512, 
while Luther was on his way to Rome to set- 
tle the quarrel between the Augustinian con- 
vents, Paris, and indeed, all France, was 
listening to those truths which Lefevre 



48 WITTENBERG. 

taught, and from which the French reforma- 
tion was soon to spring. In 1509, John 
Calvin, who was to be one of the greatest 
forces in the reformation, was born at Noyon, 
near Paris, and was thus eight years old when 
Luther nailed his theses to the Wittenberg 
church. 

In a lonely shepherd's hut in Wildhousen, 
Switzerland, just seven weeks after the birth 
of Luther at Eisleben, John Zwingli, who 
was to be the reformer of Switzerland, was 
born; and just one year after Luther was 
called to the chair of Philosophy in Witten- 
berg, Zwingle was ordained priest and elected 
pastor of Glarus. Without intercourse with 
Luther he began his warfare against the cor- 
ruptions of the Romish church, and one year 
after Luther had nailed up his theses, Zwingli 
was called to the Cathedral at Zurich where 
he labored until his death in 1531. 

In connection with all this, the shores of a 
new world were being prepared to receive 
the fugitives from the old when the fires of 
persecution should drive them, in search of 
religious liberty, from their native land. 

Thus the very moment that Luther was 



WITTENBERG. 49 

nailing up his theses in Wittenberg, we see 
the reformation already prepared in France, 
we have it begun in Switzerland; it was 
springing up in its first preparation in Scot- 
land, and the shores of a new world are being 
made ready to receive those whom the old 
world will soon cast out. God, independ- 
ently of the plans of man, and indeed in spite 
of man's plans, in different parts of the world 
and in His own way, was preparing agents 
and instruments for the great work He was 
about to begin in the overthrow of the powers 
of darkness. 

But while these men were being raised up 
for the overthrow of error ; while the monas- 
tic orders were trembling in their decay, 
there was a counter influence springing up 
which we must not fail to mention. 

Eight years after the birth of Luther, Inigo 
Lopez de Eecalde, better known as Ignatius 
Loyola, was born in Spain, a land whose 
history has been darkened by the finger of 
Rome since its earliest dawn to the present 
day. Loyola was descended from one of the 
most illustrious families of Spain, and dis- 
tinguished himself fifty years later by found- 



50 WITTENBERG. 

ing the order of the Jesuits, which was to 
serve as a reviving breath for the dying em- 
bers of Roman Catholicism. Thus we see a 
new influence, counter to the reformation 
springing into existence at the very moment 
that Luther nails his theses to the door of 
this old church. 

The church made noted by this act is on 
the outer edge of the town, a few minutes 
walk from the Luther House; on the same 
side of Collegian Strasse, and stands close to 
the infantry barracks. It was erected in 
1439 — 1499, and was badly damaged in 
1759, when the French, Austrian and Rus- 
sian powers, which really represented the 
Roman Church, took Wittenberg from Fred- 
erick the Great; and again in 1760, when 
another Frederick drove these armies out of 
Saxony. In these wars the wooden doors 
to which Luther nailed his theses were des- 
troyed by fire. 

The town and church were badly damaged 
again in 1813, when the French laid siege to, 
and took possession of Wittenberg. Im- 
mediately after the last bombardment in 
1814, when the French were driven out, the 



WITTENBERG. 51 

church was partly restored ; but the work of 
restoration was not completed until 1890- 
1892. 

In 1850, Frederick William presented the 
church with massive metal doors ten feet 
high, to replace the wooden ones which had 
been destroyed in the wars. They bear the 
Latin text of Luther's theses and are placed 
in the side of the building, furnishing the 
main entrance to the body of the church. 
Above them on the right and left, are statues 
of Frederick the Wise and John the Con- 
stant, who, in an especial manner, were 
Luther's friends and protectors. 

The tower of this church is very interest- 
ing, and climbing up its dark winding stair- 
way to the topmost landing some hundreds of 
feet above the ground, one has a splendid 
view of the surrounding country. As we 
looked down from this landing we saw a part 
of the German army drilling on the parade 
ground just below. This is no uncommon 
sight, for in almost every town in Germany 
companies of men may be seen drilling in all 
the maneuvers of war. Indeed all Germany 
is one great military camp, and almost all 



52 WITTENBERG. 

the young men of the middle and wealthy- 
classes look forward with pleasure to the 
three years they must serve in the army. But 
those of the peasant, or poorer classes, who 
are often the support and stay of aged 
parents, and being compelled by want of 
money to depend altogether on army food 
and army treatment, look forward toward 
those three years with feelings of regret and 
sorrow and consider them as years spent in a 
service akin to slavery. 

As we looked down upon a scene which 
began at our feet and stretched to the dis- 
tance, we thought what mighty battles had 
raged in and around this little town. Yon- 
der, down the street a few squares, Luther 
had fought and won the victory which tore 
the idols of Roman Catholic superstition and 
papal reverence from his heart and life, and 
which really started the full-tide of the ref- 
ormation on the continent. There before 
us were some of the battle-fields where Fred- 
erick the Great had fought in those seven 
years of dreadful warfare against the Aus- 
trians, French and Russian forces. In these 
battles we see represented by Frederick and 



WITTENBERG. 53 

his army, Protestanism, the hope of the 
world, struggling against Romanism, the 
blight upon humanity, and rolling that blight 
back from the confines of Germany. 

This city was a fortress down to 1875, and 
all around its walls the battles raged be- 
tween the French who took it in 1813, and 
the Prussians who drove them out in 1814. 
It is said that while the French had posses- 
sion they used this old church, whose founda- 
tion was laid fifty-three years before the dis- 
covery of America, as a sort of military store- 
house. So little regard has war for sacred 
buildings. 

When our guide led us into the main body 
of the church, we were struck by its peculiar 
beauty: its lofty vaulted ceiling; its mag- 
nificent altar; its fine pulpit; its beautiful 
stained glass windows ; its statuary and tombs 
which fill one with a peculiar feeling of awe 
and reverence. 

When visiting Wittenberg the Emperor 
always worships in this building, and a mag- 
nificent chair on the opposite side of the 
church from the pulpit, and between it and 
the altar, is reserved for him, while a group 



54 WITTENBERG. 

of seats placed apart from the rest are re- 
served for his family and others of the no- 
bility. 

The most interesting object, however, is 
the grave of Luther, which is near the pulpit 
and on the right side as one walks down the 
aisle from the door. Just across from this 
is the grave of his old friend, colaborer and 
neighbor, " faithful and true," Philip Me- 
lancthon. There they lie sleeping the last 
long sleep; the greatest reformer and the 
greatest scholar of the sixteenth century. 
They had been faithful and brotherly to each 
other in life, and that union was not to be 
broken in death. 

The graves are marked by bronze slabs 
with Latin inscriptions, placed in the top of 
marble foundations perhaps two feet high, 
the one on the right and the other on the left. 
There are many other metal and stone slabs 
which mark the resting placeof men of greater 
or lesser renown who have been buried in 
this church ; but the grave of the lowly monk, 
the great reformer, he who had sung so often 
with heavy heart in the streets of Eisenach, 



WITTENBERG. 55 

for daily bread, is the centre of interest to 
all tourists. 

Wittenberg holds the mortal remains of 
Luther, but he does not belong to Wittenberg ; 
he belongs to the world. He is the heritage 
of the ages. The chord struck by the theses 
which he nailed to the doors of this church 
has resounded through all lands; while the 
light of the fire kindled by the burning of the 
papal " bull " was not confined to Wittenberg 
or even to Saxony. It soon shed its long- 
looked-for rays over the whole civilized globe. 

But while the world owes much to Luther, 
it should not forget its debt of gratitude to 
his noble friend, Melancthon, for it was in 
him that Luther had his greatest human and 
moral support. It was in Melancthon's 
house and to Melancthon himself that Luther 
could unburden his heart when no one else 
would listen, or would listen only to condemn. 

Melancthon came to Wittenberg from 
Tubingen in 1518, after declining calls to 
both Leipzig and Ingolstadt. He came as a 
gift from God, on the recommendation of 
Reuchlin, just at a time when Luther needed 
some one, strong and keen, and with a deeper 



56 WITTENBERG. 

knowledge of Greek and Hebrew than he 
himself possessed; and also to cheer, counsel 
and uphold him when it seemed that all the 
world had forsaken him. 

At the time of Melancthon's arrival (by 
appointment of Frederick to the professor- 
ship of Greek) Luther had just fully entered 
upon his fearful struggle with Home. Feel- 
ing the need of some strong support he was 
at first much disappointed in Melancthon's 
appearance, but he gladly changed his opinion 
as soon as he discovered the real worth of the 
young professor. 




THE PALACE CHURCH. 



CHAPTER V. 

Otf our way to the Schloss Kirclie we visited 
the home of this friend and helper of Luther 
who, in 1530, prepared a defence of the 
Augsburg Confession which, on command of 
Charles V, had been attacked and refuted by 
Dr. Eek. This house is three stories high, is 
very old within but modernized without. 
Written on the front are the words " Here 
lived Philip Melancthon." As one reads these 
words, what strange feelings creep over him. 
Can it be possible that he is standing under 
the very shadow of the house in which, at one 
time, lived the greatest Greek Scholar of his 
day ? And who, on account of his learning, 
sincerity and faithfulness, made it possible 
for Luther to go forward with his work at a 
time when he was almost ready to give that 
work up in despair? and stood by the great 
reformer, true to the end, his helper and his 
guide? 

We rang the bell and were met by a bright 

57 



58 WITTENBERG. 

looking, pleasant young German woman who 
opened the great wooden door or gate, and 
kindly invited us in. Through this door we 
passed into a roadway paved with rough 
stones, and which was wide enough to per- 
mit a wagon to pass freely between the walls 
of the houses on either side. 

Just back of this house is a large garden 
or court surrounded by a stone wall about 
twelve feet high. In this garden still stands 
a stone table at which it is said Luther and 
Melancthon used to sit to talk and study over 
the great questions that were so frequently 
uppermost in their minds. It is a mere 
slab of stone, perhaps three inches thick 
and two, or two and one half feet wide by 
three feet long, placed on a central stone pillar. 
It stands under some ancient looking trees, 
" just where," our guide said, " it used to 
stand" when those old trees sheltered the two 
men of such courage. These trees may not 
have been there during the time of the ref- 
ormation, but an old decayed oak stump now 
almost gone, stands near the table, and may 
have been growing into young treehood at 
that time. 



WITTENBERG. 59 

On the opposite side of the garden the 
stone wall was pierced by a doorway, and a 
path led directly from it, by a back entrance, 
into the Luther House. This door was often 
used by both friends when visiting each 
other, as it was much more convenient and 
private than by passing through the front 
way and along the street. The doorway has 
long since been closed up by masonry, but 
the outlines of it are still plainly visible. 

Leaving the garden we entered the house. 
To reach the rooms occupied by Melancthon 
we ascended a dark winding stair. In these 
rooms, a broken chair which he is said to 
have used, a great old-fashioned German stove, 
and the same old floor made of rough boards, 
were all that was to be seen. But as one 
thinks back to those olden days, he can almost 
hear the boisterous laughter as it rang through 
that narrow entry, in those rooms where we 
were standing, and down below in the garden 
as Luther and Melancthon sat together dis- 
cussing the scandal about Eck or Tetzel. 
But other sounds than those of boisterous 
laughter had often echoed through those 
stone walled halls. It was the voice of 



60 WITTENBERG. 

prayer; for Oh! how many times the voices 
of those dear friends were raised, and their 
hearts blended in supplication to God in con- 
sideration of the great questions before them. 

Aside from the thought of being in the 
very room of this great and good man, walk- 
ing upon the same floor, and looking upon 
the same walls, and connecting it all with 
his life, there is little else of interest in the 
place. But let us not forget that Melancthon 
was Luther's greatest human support, and 
that without his wisdom, his sound advice, 
his encouraging manner, his more acute 
knowledge of the Greek and Hebrew lan- 
guages, his comprehensive and accurate sys- 
tem of theology, Luther could never have ac- 
complished his great work. He considered 
him the brightest light of the century and 
frequently said that if Melancthon lived it 
made little difference what became of himself. 

Luther was elected Town preacher soon 
after he came to Wittenberg, and we next 
went to the church in which he preached 
while in that office, and also after his return 
from Rome. It is known as the Stadt Kirche, 
(Town Church), was erected in the four- 



WITTENBERG. 61 

teenth century, and stands in a somewhat re- 
tired place back from Collegian Strasse. The 
exterior was at one time elaborately decorated 
with statuary of saints and patrons; rulers 
and kings; with inscriptions and tablets be- 
neath each: but time, weather and vandal 
tourists have told sadly upon them, and at 
the present time none of these inscriptions 
are fully legible, while some of the statues 
are so badly worn away as to be without fea- 
ture, and some even without form. 

There is not much else of special interest 
in the furnishings of the church. There is 
an altar, the same old pulpit in which Luther 
so often stood to preach the gospel of Jesus 
rather than the doctrines of Rome ; and just 
before the altar there still stands the baptis- 
mal font which was said by our guide to be 
the one Luther used almost four hundred 
years ago. 

It was in this church that communion (or 
mass) in both kinds, was first administered 
to the people by a Roman priest. This ser- 
vice was performed by Carlstadt, one of the 
professors of the university, on Christmas 
day, 1521, or, according to some authorities, 



62 WITTENBERG. 

in the early part of 1522, It was here, when 
the clouds were rolling from the mind of the 
future reformer that great crowds gathered 
to hear the word as it came with clearer em- 
phasis and a new meaning from his lips. 

In this church, while Luther was in the 
Wartburg castle (1521) Gabriel Zwilling, a 
former monk of the Wittenberg Convent, 
publicly espoused the doctrine of the reforma- 
tion to the multitudes who gathered to hear 
him. He declared the worship of the "host" 
to be sacrilege and idolatry, and that all 
members of the church had a perfect right to 
receive the sacraments under both kinds. lie 
cried out against Monachism^ and struck 
fiercely at the monastic orders, saying that 
" every one who entered a monastery entered 
it on the command of Satan for," he said, 
" the fundamental principles of the whole 
order were contrary to the will of God." 
Thirteen friars, influenced by these words of 
their former fellow monk, soon left the con- 
vent, assumed the ordinary dress of citizens 
and became profitable members of society. 

Apart from reformation interest it is well 
worth while to spend an hour in the market 



WITTENBERG, 63 

platz, which, on the day of our visit, was 
crowded with men, women, children, carts 
and dogs, for all over the continent of Europe, 
this " friend of man" is turned into a beast of 
burden, and it is no uncommon thing to see 
one or two, and sometimes three or four dogs 
hitched to a cart or wagon filled with fruit, 
vegetables or milk, and often a baby tucked 
comfortably down in one corner. The dogs 
trot briskly along the road or street, barking 
merrily at some pedestrian, or growling 
fiercely at some canine brother who chances 
to pass that way. The driver usually walks 
by their side or just behind the vehicle, but 
sometimes he, or she, as the case may be, adds 
to the weight of the load by riding. 

Many women had stalls or booths, formed 
by four upright posts placed several feet 
apart, over which a canvas was stretched to 
protect their goods from rain. These goods 
consisted of nuts, vegetables, flowers, candy, 
fancy work, cheap clothing of all kinds, etc., 
etc., which were spread out with as much 
display as possible. Others less fortunate, 
or perhaps more indifferent, sat under huge 
umbrellas and displayed their goods as best 



64 WITTENBERG. 

they could ; but all were clamorously extolling 
the good qualities of their wares and urging 
the passer-by to purchase. Every one seemed 
to be in the best of humor, and a good neigh- 
bourly feeling was apparent between them. 

In this market square are two statues, about 
one hundred feet apart. One is a slender 
figure robed in a gown, and with saintly ex- 
pression of countenance. This is easily recog- 
nized as a statue of Melancthon, who w r as to 
Luther what Jonathan was to David. It was 
erected about thirty-five years ago ; and upon 
the pedestal are the following inscriptions 
written in German ; on one side, " En- 
deavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in 
the bonds of peace." On the opposite side : " I 
will speak thy testimonies also before kings, 
and I will not be ashamed." 

The other is a statue of Luther; a repre- 
sentative of a genuine robust Teuton, holding 
in his hand an open Bible under which is in- 
scribed : " Believe the gospel." On one side 
of the pedestal are the words : " If this be 
God's work it will endure ; if it be man's it 
will perish." On the opposite side we read 
the immortal motto : " Eine feste Burg ist 



WITTENBERG. 65 

wiser Gott " — God is our strong fortress. 
Surely it was not the work of man. It must 
have been the work of God. Almost four 
hundred years have passed since the flames of 
the papal bull proclaimed far and wide the 
battle cry which Luther raised against the 
pope at Rome, and yet that work continues. 

It was taken up by other generations, other 
peoples, other nations, and is felt in the 
whole civilized world to-day, and thousands 
from the generations of men have found ref- 
uge and peace and safety in that " Feste 
Burg" the strong-hold of God. And long 
after that statue has crumbled into dust, 
should the world stand so long, other multi- 
tudes from the generations yet unborn will 
find a safe retreat within the shelter of that 
ever enduring fortress: and long after this 
earth shall have been melted with fervent 
heat, those countless hosts who found safety 
within that fortress, will be singing the praises 
of the redeemed in that city whose walls are 
four square, whose gates are of pearl and whose 
streets are of gold. 

In this market place the students burnt the 
theses of Tetzel, which were sent to be circu- 



66 WITTENBERG. 

lated in Wittenberg in the hopes of counter- 
acting the influence of those which Luther 
nailed to the church doors. Fearing to come 
himself, Tetzel sent his agent to distribute 
them; but the students caught the agent, 
purchased some copies, snatched away the 
rest, and prevented any of them from getting 
into public circulation. They then placed 
a placard on the University " board," an- 
nouncing the burning of Tetzel's theses in the 
market place at two o'clock in the afternoon, 
and urging all who desired to be present " at 
the funeral " to be there promptly at that 
hour. A great crowd assembled to witness 
the proceedings, and at the appointed time a 
fire was kindled and the theses committed to 
the flames. Only one copy escaped destruc- 
tion, and this fell into Luther's hands, and 
was sent by him to Erfurt. 

The nailing up of the theses was a crisis 
in Luther's life. But he who feared neither 
pope nor king, had taken his ground and was 
determined to keep it. Indulgences and 
pardons were only some of the many forms 
or methods by which the people were deceived 
and robbed, and so Luther dared to point out 



WITTENBERG. 67 

other evils which came very close to pope and 
priest. Among these was the assertion that 
the clergy were only men. This was directly 
contrary to the teachings of the church. 

The clergy, for many centuries, had made 
the people believe that they (the clergy) were 
a sort of supernatural party; that they held 
the keys of heaven and hell; that they had 
power to bind and loose at pleasure, and that 
on them the fate of every soul depended. 
Luther boldly and firmly attacked this doc- 
trine, and affirmed that Apostolic succession 
was only a dream and that much of the 
boasted power of the church, the relics and 
the pope was only an ignorant superstition, 
an illusion and a base imposition. 

This was a step in advance of the proposi- 
tions directly embraced in the theses, and it 
was not long until a voice was heard from 
beyond the Alps. Something had to be done 
to stop this monk. Leo had discovered that 
his indulgences would not sell while Luther 
was preaching so vigorously and forcibly 
against them. He had also discovered that 
there was something more than a mere 
"squabble among the monks' ' up in Germany, 



68 WITTENBERG. 

and wished to smother the disturbance. Nun- 
cios and legates were sent, not to answer 
Luther, but to threaten or bribe him into 
silence. 

This failing to answer the purpose, the 
pope, in August, 1518, commanded him to 
come to Rome to undergo what would now be 
called a trial for heresy. The pope even 
ordered the Elector of Saxony to arrest the 
" miserable monk " who could neither be 
frightened nor purchased, and bring him to 
Rome. But this, Frederick refused to do, 
and informed his papal highness that as it 
was a German affair it could best be settled 
in German territory. 

This determination of Frederick no doubt 
saved Luther from imprisonment and perhaps 
from death, for who can say what the angry 
pope and the more angry priests and bishops 
might not have done if the reformer had been 
placed in their power. The pope yielded to 
Frederick, it was decided the investigation be 
made in Germany, and Luther was called 
from his quiet home in Wittenberg to face 
the papal legate, Cardinal Cajetan, in Augs- 
burg, October 11-13, 1518. At this trial the 



WITTENBERG. 69 

cardinal seemed desirous of being very len- 
ient. He treated Luther good-humoredly, 
called him his son and told him that he re- 
quired nothing of him but to speak one little 
word " Revoco" — I recant, or revoke. This 
Luther positively refused to do. 

From this council Luther returned to Wit- 
tenberg, stealing secretly away at night on 
Oct. 19, fearing forcible detention. He left 
with his friends, however, " an appeal from 
the pope badly informed, to the pope to be 
better informed." This appeal was afterward 
nailed to the doors of the Augsburg Cathe- 
dral. 



CHAPTEK VI. 

A few months later Luther was summoned 
to appear at Leipsic, before the formidable 
Dr. Eck, his one time friend, but who was 
now beginning a course as one of his most 
bitter enemies. 

What must have been his feelings as ho 
left the walls of Wittenberg undefended, and 
without even a safe conduct, and with the 
fate of Huss in his mind, to face this over- 
bearing papal legate! But he returned a 
victor from the conflict, having succeeded in 
trapping his wily opponent in the meshes of 
the very net which had been prepared and 
spread to catch the reformer. Eck charged 
Luther with denying the headship of the 
church. Luther would not admit the charge. 
" Then," cried out the excited doctor, " ac- 
knowledge the infallibility of the pope, for he 
is the head of the church." 

This Luther also, denied, and when asked 

70 



WITTENBERG. 71 

by his opponent who was the head of the 
church, if not the pope ? he calmly answered : 
" Jesus Christ, and he alone is infallible." 

Eck was completely caught. He had 
either to reject the pope or Christ as the head 
of the church. He was ready to do neither ; 
and so withdrew from the conflict badlv 
beaten, and departed for Rome to stir up the 
pope to more active measures against this 
heretic monk. 

At the diet at Augsburg, Luther would have 
conceded anything but the truth about free 
justification of all sinners who believe in 
Jesus Christ. He revered the pope and de- 
clared that he himself was no heretic ; but at 
Leipsic he openly avowed his disbelief in the 
pope's authority to determine doctrine, and 
fearlessly and openly declared that the Hus- 
sites, who were considered in Saxony as here- 
tics and enemies of the church, were right, 
and deserved credit and homage for confess- 
ing the truth in their doctrines. From this 
time on Luther and his faithful co-laborer, 
Melancthon, were forced to stand openly as 
the champions of God's word, and in direct 
conflict with the papacy. 



72 WITTENBERG. 

But Eck, boiling with rage and chagrin, 
had already reached Rome and appealed to 
Leo to suppress the Wittenberg monk, whom 
he often designated as a " beast." In re- 
sponse to Eck's entreaties the pope launched 
his " Bull" against the reformer, calling him 
" a damned heretic," and denying him the 
right to live. 

The news of this act reached Germany 
long before the bull made its appearance 
there. It aroused the antagonistic spirit of 
Luther and he sent forth his " Appeal to the 
Nobles of Germany," June 26, 1520. In 
this work he sets forth the awful condition of 
Italy; how her people were degraded, ignor- 
ant, and ground down in the depths of 
poverty; the demoralized spiritual condition 
of those who lived nearest to Rome, the very 
center or fountain-head of the church, and 
urged the Elector and the whole body of the 
German Nobility to save their land from a 
like fate. 

He denounced the pope's temporal power 
and his magnificent revenues as directly con- 
trary to the teachings and example of Jesus, 
whose Vicar he pretended to be, for He had 



WITTENBERG. ?3 

not where to lay His head ; and also contrary 
to the doctrines of Peter, whose follower in 
Apostolic succession the pope professed to be. 
The humble fisherman of Galilee said : " Sil- 
ver and gold have I none," while his pretended 
successor lived in excess of luxury and filled 
his coffers from the poverty of the people. 
" The people," according to Luther's words, 
" were playing with the husks while the pope 
was eating the fruit." 

The Elector and his court waited patiently 
the result: but the people did not. The na- 
tion was stirred to its depths. The people 
were won over and rallied around the fear- 
less writer, and in an incredibly short time 
for those days, four thousand copies of his 
appeal were sold. All Germany was aroused 
and ready to defend Luther before the " bull" 
reached Germany, while the entire population 
of Wittenberg, they who knew the reformer 
best, now fully considered that the pope whom 
they had blindly served so long, was nothing 
else than Antichrist. 

The students of Wittenberg had already 
publicly burnt the denunciations against 
Luther which Tetzel had substituted for a 



74 WITTENBERG, 

reply to the theses; and now a fire of far 
greater moment was about to be kindled. 
Just outside the walls of the city, near the 
Elster Thor (the eastern gate, which is 
still standing in good preservation, a rem- 
nant of the old wall) stands an oak tree 
near the roadside, in a small garden sur- 
rounded by an iron fence. On this oak, 
known as " The Luther tree," there is nailed 
an inscription, written in German, stating 
that under this very tree, on Dec. 10, 1520, 
Luther publicly burnt the papal " bull" 
which Leo X had sent against him from 
Eome. 

The fire was kindled. One of the Mas- 
ters from the university threw into the flames 
a copy of the decretals which consisted of the 
false epistle of St. Clement and some other 
alleged ancient papers upon which the claims 
of the Church of Eome are founded, but which 
were declared by the professors, and since 
have been admitted by the Eomanists them- 
selves, to have been forgeries. When these 
papers had disappeared in smoke and ashes, 
Luther calmly stepped forward and solemnly 
placed in the flames the formidable "bull" 



WITTENBERG. 75 

of Leo. X, which was issued with all that 
papal power before which rulers and crowned 
heads had trembled and bowed in meek sub- 
mission. 

The burning of these papers was like the 
lighting of a beacon fire on some high moun- 
tain top which was to call the attention of 
the whole world to this new ray, of an old 
truth, now breaking through the darkness 
that had shrouded it so long. Luther knew 
full well the greatness and awfulness of his 
act. For centuries Rome had not pronounced 
a sentence of condemnation which she was 
not able to execute; and while the hearts of 
the students and citizens who stood around 
that tree on that memorable day leaped with 
joy at the foreshadowing of freedom, they 
trembled in fear for the brave monk who had 
thus kindled a fire that would soon set the 
heavens of the spiritual world of man glow- 
ing with a new and better light. 

But as the earth leaps into a newness of 
life after a long winter of bondage to ice and 
snow, springing into beauty in response to 
the showers of April and the sunshine of 
May, so the hearts of the people, imprisoned 



76 WITTENBERG. 

through many generations by the fetters of 
Roman superstition and the night of religious 
ignorance, sprang up and rejoiced in the hope 
of a brighter dawn, the first beams of which 
were so plainly seen by the light of that fire, 
and fed by the missal of the false follower of 
Peter. The thunders of the Vatican had 
reached Germany but had not silenced the 
German monk. 

Luther fully expected now, sooner or later, 
to be made a sacrifice to papal rage and big- 
otry, even as Huss a hundred years before 
(July 6, 1415) had been sacrificed. But he 
knew that such an act on the part of the 
church would only hasten the time of Ger- 
many's deliverance; and as the Vatican of- 
ficials had already burnt his books and were 
longing to submit him to the same fate, he 
had answered by burning the papal bull; 
and so defied the pope with all his professed 
Apostolic and supernatural power to do his 
worst. 

On the morrow the lecture rooms were 
more crowded than ever. Luther was ex- 
pected to give an address on the occurrence 
of yesterday, but to the great surprise of his 



WITTENBERG. 77 

audience he gave a lecture on the Psalms and 
never referred to the incident of the day be- 
fore until he was through with his lecture, 
then he only mentioned it in a general way, 
intimating that the struggle with Rome was 
not yet over. 

But whatever commands might issue from 
the Vatican, and however ignorant and 
bigoted priests might fume and rage, the 
people were now, by a mighty tie, drawn more 
closely to Luther than ever before. More 
than two thousand students, coming from 
Germany, The Netherlands, France, Italy, 
Hungary and even England now sat daily at 
the feet of Luther and Melancthon; and 
many of these students would have defended 
their beloved masters with their lives. But 
above students and people stood the Elector 
Frederick of whom it was said : " He loved 
his people/' and the pope with all his alleged 
power was not in condition to despise such a 
protection. 

The last cord that bound Luther to the 
papal church was now broken. Retreat for 
him was not desired nor was it possible. For 
him to stand still was just as impossible. The 



?8 WITTENBERG. 

pope could not sit with idle hands while his 
authority had been publicly denied and con- 
demned. Luther would not allow the night 
of superstition and ignorance which had be- 
gun to lift, to settle again upon himself and 
the world ; and it was God's plan to place the 
light that had begun to shine so brightly, 
upon a higher hill that it might be seen yet 
farther; and on March 24, 1521, a summons 
reached Wittenberg. It came not from the 
pope borne by papal legate, but borne by 
Gaspard Strum, a herald of Charles V, and 
from the Emperor himself; summoning 
Luther to appear before a diet to be held at 
Worms, April 17, 1521. 

As soon as it was discovered that he was 
preparing to comply with the command of 
the emperor, his friends earnestly protested 
against his going, even though Charles V 
had granted him a safe conduct. They re- 
minded him of the fate of Huss, whose safe 
conduct was utterly disregarded by the rep- 
resentatives of the pope, and even by him 
who had granted it. They reminded him 
of the open declaration of the Romanists that 
they were not bound by any law of justice to 



WITTENBERG. 79 

keep faith with heretics. Luther was soon 
to see how nearly this principle was to prevail 
at the diet to which he was going when 
Charles was urged by the papal legates to 
break his faith and disregard his safe con- 
duct. 

Luther left Wittenberg, April second, 
1521. Many of his friends gathered around 
him, feeling that they would never see him 
again; for they had no faith whatever in 
Roman Catholic consistency, nor in the safe 
conduct of Charles who was so largely con- 
trolled by the Eoman church. Melancthon 
(though present with him at the diet) 
thought at this time that his dear old friend 
would never return to Wittenberg, and 
Luther himself seemed to feel that this might 
be the case ; for as he entered the carriage he 
said to Melancthon in faltering tones: 
" Should I not return, and should my enemies 
put me to death, oh! my brother, cease not 
to teach and abide steadfast in the truth. 
Labor in my place, for I shall not be able to 
labor for myself. If you be spared, it mat- 
ters little that I perish." Then he drove off 
to Worms. 



80 WITTENBERG. 

On his journey peasants blessed him, men 
and women of the common people thronged 
around him and urged him not to trust his 
life to his enemies. At Erfurt, sixty burgh- 
ers and professors escorted him with great 
splendor along the streets crowded with grate- 
ful people, and along which sixteen years be- 
fore he had begun his work as a monk, when 
with sack thrown over his shoulder he begged 
from door to door for scraps of bread and 
meat for himself and others of his order. In 
this town he had also spent several years as a 
student and professor in the university. 

Passing through Erfurt he proceeded on 
his journey to the diet, but just outside the 
walls of Worms, a messenger sent by his old 
friend, Spalatin, met him, and urged him to 
turn aside and not to enter the city. To this 
messenger Luther replied : " Go tell your 
master that if there were as many devils at 
Worms as there are tiles on the roofs, yet 
would I go in." And he went in under an 
escort of a hundred cavaliers who met him 
at the gate. Thousands of people crowded 
each other on the streets to get a glimpse of 
the man who had openly defied the pope. 



WITTENBERG. 81 

Some were his friends but others were his 
enemies. Some of them had even snatched his 
writings from the book stalls and had pub- 
licly burnt them. 

To enter into the proceedings of this 
council or diet, is foreign to the scope of our 
subject, other than to say that the Romanists 
resorted to many plans and much trickery 
to have Luther retract. This he refused to 
do unless they could prove from the Bible 
that his writings were contrary to the teach- 
ings of Scripture. The papal legates re- 
fused to debate the scriptural bearing of the 
question, and Luther, standing there before 
the Emperor and his court as well as a great 
body of ecclesiastical officials who were pres- 
ent, modestly but firmly declared that unless 
this proof was produced he would never re- 
tract ; and closed with those memorable words 
that have sounded down through the cen- 
turies. " Here I stand. I can do no other, 
God help me." 

When the representatives of Rome learned 
that they could not gain their end by force 
or persuasion, they tried everything in their 
power to have him handed over to the tender 



82 WITTENBERG. 

mercies of the pope or his legate. They urged 
upon the Emperor that a safe conduct 
should not be kept with a heretic. They 
might have prevailed in the end if it had not 
been that many of the German Knights and 
Nobles protested so vigorously, declaring 
that they would never permit such a blot to 
come on German honor ; and that the conduct 
must be kept, though all the adherents of 
Rome should protest otherwise. 

Ulrich Von Hutten even announced that 
the conduct must be kept, and if Luther's 
life was taken, he and his fellow Knights 
would have the life of Cardinal Campagio 
in return. This had the desired effect and 
the violation of the conduct was not further 
urged upon the Emperor. 

]STot being satisfied with trying by the 
most insidious means to get Luther to recant, 
and unable to gain the Emperor's non re- 
gard for the pledge he had given Luther, 
one of the priests, more wily than the rest, as 
a last resort appealed to Luther to surrender 
the conduct and thus show the world that he 
was ready to put all his confidence in the truth 
for which he was willing to die j and so abide 



WITTENBERG. 83 

the issues of a " fair discussion." Luther 
had almost yielded to the tender persuasions 
of the priest, when a knight who was present 
saw through the treacherous scheme, and 
without ceremony roughly ejected the priest 
from the house. 



CHAPTER VII. 

The diet closed in discomfiture for Leo 
and his representatives, and Luther, the real 
victor, began his journey to Wittenberg 
April 26th. His journey to Worms had 
been a triumphal march; but his return was 
even more glorious. As he went, people 
looked upon him as a martyr being led to the 
stake, but on his return they hailed him as 
their deliverer. 

While he was yet on his way homeward, 
the terrible edict was sent forth from 
Worms. This edict was written after the 
diet had been adjourned, and after Luther's 
departure from Worms; but it was ante- 
dated seventeen days in order to give it the 
appearance of the action of the whole assem- 
blv. This shows how faithful the Roman 
church can be, as she always has been, to 
serve her own purposes and interests. The 
terrible edict branded Luther, not only as a 

84: 



WITTENBERG. 85 

heretic, but also as an outlaw. It denied 
him the kindly attention of friends or strang- 
ers ; the right to enter any house for food or 
shelter, and even the right to live. 

This was not the act of a man. It was 
the act of Satan covered with a monk's cowl, 
acting under the authority of him who sat in 
the Vatican wearing the pallium (false sym- 
bol of purity and holiness) which was stained 
by the blood of Huss who was burnt at the 
stake through the machinations of Pope John 
XXIII. But such are the gentle and loving 
wavs with which the Romish church has ever 
dealt with her erring children, i. e, those who 
have seen fit to think for themselves and have 
wandered from her fold. 

Such was her love on St. Bartholomew's 
night, Aug. 23-24, 1672, fifty-one years af- 
ter, when the murder of sixty thousand peo- 
ple who had dared to leave her ranks, caused 
such rejoicing at Rome that a medal was 
struck by the order of Pope Clement X, com- 
memorating the diabolical deed. Such was 
her love for the Netherlands in the years 
1523-1526, when fifty-thousand people were 
slain because they dared to worship God 



86 "WITTENBERG. 

in a manner different from that prescribed by 
Rome. Such was her love during the reign 
of Bloody Mary in England between 1554- 
1558, when Latimer, Ridley, Cranmer, and 
more than three hundred were burnt because 
they believed in Christ rather than the pope. 
Such has been her record through the ages: 
such might be her record to-day if she only 
had the power. 

Charles V has been commended for his 
honor in keeping faith with Luther and not 
handing him over to the priests as Huss had 
been delivered to them at Constance. But 
it was with no feeling of honor, humanity or 
regard for Luther's work that he kept faith 
with the reformer. Did he not sanction the 
terrible edict against Luther seventeen days 
after the council had disbanded, though ante- 
dating that decree so as to make it appear as 
the action of the whole council ? Did he not 
a few days later declare to his confessor that 
he " would execute before the very window at 
which they were standing, the first man who 
shall declare himself a Lutheran after the 
publication of my edict ? " Did not his 
dreadfully inhuman conduct toward the 



WITTENBERG. 87 

[Netherlands, a few years later, prove that it 
was policy rather than honor, that caused him 
not to violate his pledge ? The true secret of 
it all was that he was not ready to be publicly 
led by the pope, and also because he had a 
wholesome fear of the Elector Frederick, whom 
he knew to be Luther's friend and protector, 
and to whom he also knew that he himself 
owed his crown. 

On his way home Luther spent a few days 
at Eisenach, the scene of his boyhood strug- 
gles against poverty, and then passed on to 
Mora, a small town where he spent a short 
time with his grand-parents and others of 
his relatives. He left this village on the 
morning of May fourth, intending to go di- 
rect to Wittenberg. He had proceeded only 
a short distance when, in a lonely place in 
the forest, he was seized by a band of dis- 
guised men and carried a prisoner to the 
Wartberg castle. His captors were really 
his friends, delegated to this task by Fred- 
erick the Elector, who was owner of the cas- 
tle. 

The edict of Worms placed Luther under 
the Imperial ban. It forbade any one to 



88 WITTENBERG. 

give him food or shelter, and commanded 
that he should be seized wherever found and 
handed over at once to his enemies. Fearing 
that through the influence of this edict Luther 
might fall into the hands of his foes, Fred- 
erick captured him and had him conveyed to 
this retreat of safety. 

This castle crowns a steep hill, and at that 
time was reached by a narrow winding bridle- 
path leading through dense forests. The hill 
at the present time is surrounded and covered 
with heavy timber, but a good stone road 
leads by easy ascent and many windings, up 
to the old castle which still stands as a grim 
sentinel at the top of the mountain. In this 
retreat he was kept for almost a year, dressed 
as a knight and known as " Knight George." 
Then news reached him of an agitation 
caused by two Anabaptist fanatics who had 
arrived in Wittenberg, and he determined 
to return and quiet the turmoil. 

We will leave Luther for a time in his 
hill-top prison, and hastily follow the events 
that transpired at Wittenberg during those 
ten months. 

Before Luther was taken to the Wartburg, 
and shortly after he had burnt the papal bull, 



WITTENBERG. 89 

the students of Wittenberg University 
dressed up one of their number as a pope, 
others as cardinals, bishops, etc. They then 
formed themselves into a grand procession 
and marched with mock solemnity through 
the streets toward the river. Other students, 
not in the procession, feigned an attack, when 
these monks, cardinals and bishops fearing 
the mock pope would be captured, seized him 
and pretended as though they would throw 
him into the riven His holy highness did 
not like this idea, and breaking loose ran 
away. The bishops and cardinals also ran, 
going in different directions, hiding in dark 
alleys and corners of the streets. They were 
hotly pursued by other students and chased 
wildly through the town, to the great amuse- 
ment of the citizens. 

Of course this was all a burlesque, and 
Luther would much rather it had never oc- 
curred ; but it serves to show what the mind of 
the students was at that time toward the 
Roman church and her ecclesiastical digni- 
taries. 

Melancthon, " The Theologian of Ger- 
many/' came to Wittenberg in 1518. Luther 



90 WITTENBERG. 

was called to Worms in 1521; so that almost 
three years of mutual benefit and pleasure 
had passed since their meeting; years which 
drew them ever closer together, but now 
Luther was seized and carried away, Melanc- 
thon knew not where. The voice to which 
all Germany listened was silent. These 
hearts so constant and true were now separated 
and Melancthon dwelt in sadness in Witten- 
berg, frequently declaring that he would 
rather die than lose Luther. 

His tender heart and sympathetic nature 
were sorely tried ; but one day, in the midst 
of his gloom, he received a letter from Luther, 
dated from " The Isle of Patmos," which 
caused him to cry out in joy : " Our be- 
loved father lives." But in the verv midst 
of this joy a saddening thought struck him. 
He knew that Luther was alive, but he also 
knew that the terrible edict of Worms had 
been scattered far and near, some even reach- 
ing the Tyrol Mountains; and he thought 
that in accordance with that edict, his be- 
loved father would either be kept in captivity 
for life, or be slain by his enemies. 

In accordance with this edict, Luther was 



WITTENBERG. 91 

" Under the excommunication of the pope •, 
tinder the ban of the Emperor ; branded as a 
heretic ; sentenced as a traitor ; reviled by the 
emperor's edict as ' a fool ; ' a blasphemer, a 
devil clothed in a monk's cowl, and it was 
made treason to give him food or shelter ; and 
a virtue to deliver him to death." 

In whose power, then, was he ? If in the 
hands of friends, why did he not let his 
friends at Wittenberg know ? If he were in 
the hands of his enemies what was there then 
to hope for? These thoughts filled Melanc- 
thon with sadness, for though these two men 
were the direct opposites of each other in 
many ways, the one massive in physique; 
bold and defiant in nature; boisterous and 
rude, with kind heart and indomitable cour- 
age; the other slight of frame; timid in na- 
ture ; delicate and refined in manner and also 
with a kind heart, but when aroused, of 
great courage, they were bound together by 
the unseen but exceeding strong cord of love 
and mutual respect. And underneath it all 
there was the earnest belief in the same book, 
the Bible ; and interest in the same work ; the 
making that Bible known to the people. 



92 WITTENBERG. 

Melancthon did not permit his grief to 
take him from his studies* The enemies of 
the Reformation who were rejoicing at the 
disappearance of Luther were to find in Me- 
lancthon an antagonist not to be despised. In 
1521 he published his great theological work 
" On the Common Places of Theology/' 
which won much favor among the learned to- 
ward the reformation. Luther, especially 
rejoiced over it, and all through his life 
regarded it very highly. It clearly refuted 
many calumnies, and swept away many pre- 
judices against the reformation doctrine, and 
also placed Melancthon before the world as a 
strong supporter of Luther. 

He even went a step farther and took up 
the quarrel with the Sorbonne of Paris, the 
foremost institution of learning at that time 
in the world, but which, having been led astray 
by the fanatic Roman Catholics, Beda 
and one or two others, had accused Luther of 
heresy because he claimed that God pardoned 
sins fully and freely without the intervention 
of pope or priest, and without the payment in 
money for such forgiveness ; also, because he 



WITTENBERG. 93 

openly declared that it was against the will 
of the Holy Spirit to burn heretics. 

In this quarrel Melancthon not only de- 
fends Luther and the doctrines he proclaimed, 
but he openly attacks the enemy. He boldly 
accused the Sorbonne of having hidden from 
the people the gospel and substituting for 
Christianity an empty philosophy* He 
charged the Sorbonne itself with being the seat 
of heresy, and claimed for Wittenberg the 
honor of being the seat of true orthodoxy. 

Looking, as we do, through the haze and 
shadows of almost four centuries, this act 
of Melancthon's is apt to lose much of its 
significance, and cause us to overlook much 
of what it might have meant for him. The 
terrible edict of Worms was hanging over 
Luther, urging his capture or his death. 
Luther himself, was a prisoner, no one seemed 
to know where ; and no one save his captors, 
knew whether he had not fallen among his 
enemies. The Roman power seemed trium- 
phant, and what might she not do to vent her 
wrath upon Melancthon if she were to find 
in him another champion against the old, de- 
cayed and falling papal church? 



94 WITTENBERG. 

It was no small act therefore, of Melanc- 
thon's, for it might mean for him excom- 
munication ; the ban of the church and of the 
emperor; exile or even death at the stake. 
Yet he seemed not to have considered the 
probable consequences, but took up with 
mighty hand his weapon against papal theo- 
logical errors, and joined fearlessly in the 
conflict with the most advanced college in the 
land. 

Luther was silent. The populace de- 
manded to know what had become of him. 
The courage of the priests wavered before 
the popular cry for the reformer, and the 
leaders of the Roman church would have 
given much to have had a word from him to 
quiet the excited people ; but after a time the 
courage returned to some of the boldest of 
Rome's adherents, and Albert Elector, Arch- 
bishop of Mentz, while at Halle, thought, that 
as Luther was in prison and thus out of the 
way, and the reformation apparently dead, it 
was pretty safe to begin again the sale of in- 
dulgences. He therefore called together some 
mendicant friars and told them to at once be- 
gin the work. But Luther, though a pris- 



WITTENBERG. 95 

oner, heard of this act and immediately be- 
gan a treatise against " The new Idol of 
Halle." 

News that this thesis was about to be 
launched from the prison walls reached 
Halle about the middle of October. Albert 
was surprised and terrified. He thought 
Luther was silenced and would be heard of 
no more, but now the terror of the reformer's 
wrath was about to be sent upon him, and he 
dispatched two of his adherents to Wittenberg 
to prevail upon Melancthon to use his in- 
fluence against the fury of Luther, and urge 
him into silence. They wished to allay the 
storm about to be raised by the coming thesis, 
and approaching Melancthon, told him that 
Luther must be less impetuous. They were 
received courteously by Melancthon but when 
they had made known to him their business, 
he simply told them that " God was moving 
Luther/' and that the age needed " a bitter 
pungent salt." 

Baffled in this, they turned their endeavors 
toward the court of the Elector, and to a 
great extent won Frederick and his court to 
their favor; the Elector even declaring 



96 WITTENBERG. 

that he would not allow Luther to write 
against the Archbishop of Mentz nor disturb 
the tranquillity of the public again. 

The book against the " New Idol of Halle" 
was almost finished however, and hastening 
to completion; and Luther sent to Albert a 
letter declaring that if he did not immediately 
stop the sale of indulgences, and let him 
know within a fortnight, that he (Luther) 
would publish his thesis against the new 
" Idol" in spite of all opposition. 

The fear of such an act was more than the 
Archbishop could brave (or was it perhaps 
his conscience that prompted him ? ) and he 
wrote to Luther, humbly yielding to his com- 
mands. The sale of indulgences was stopped. 

What a mighty power to be yielded by a 
humble monk, born of peasant parents, ex- 
communicated, under the ban of Emperor and 
pope, and imprisoned in a lonely castle sur- 
rounded by dense forests. Yet it was the 
right, the truth, conquering and triumphing 
over wrong and falsehood. It was the light 
driving out the darkness; it was GOD win- 
ning the victory over Satan. 



CHAPTER VIII- 

During this period of Luther's captivity, 
Zwilling, a monk and chaplain to the con- 
vent, was preaching the reformed doctrine 
with much power, to great congregations in 
the Town Church of Wittenberg. He de- 
nounced monasticism in the severest terms. 
Thirteen monks, largely influenced by him 
had left the convent and assumed the ordi- 
nary citizen's dress. Feldkirchen of Kern- 
bry, had broken the vows of the monastic 
order and had married. Communion in 
both kinds had been administered, and the 
council of Wittenberg, in conjunction with 
the university, took action to regulate the 
Lord's Supper regardless of pope or priest; 
and decided not to tolerate in their midst 
mendicant or begging friars. Thus the mass, 
Rome's strongest bulwark, fell; and with it, 
much of the worship of the host, the pope and 
the priests; and this worship, now turned 

away from hollow mockeries which had held 

97 



98 WITTENBERG. 

it so long, was to return to its proper and 
worthy object, Jesus of Nazareth. Thus 
we see that though the great leader was with- 
drawn for a time from sight, others were 
taking up the work and waging a valiant 
warfare against the mockery of religion. 

Many thought the absence of Luther would 
prove the downfall of the reformation, but 
his imprisonment was rather a blessing in 
disguise than a curse or a drawback. When 
he stood at the diet of Worms, the eyes of all 
Europe were fixed upon him more as a man 
than upon the religious truths he was teach- 
ing ; but when he was confined for ten months 
in the castle on the mountain top, the minds 
of the people had time to turn from the man 
to the doctrines he proclaimed. It also served 
to turn aside any danger to the people of 
making a sort of idol of him who stood so 
fearlessly before his persecutors, and di- 
rected the thought of Germany, and indeed of 
all Europe toward the true source of life. 
The man was now withdrawn ; his stamp was 
no longer to mark the work. — That work was 
now to bear the mark or stamp of GOD alone. 

Luther had time, while in his mountain re- 



WITTENBERG. 99 

treat, to work on his translation of the Bible; 
and when he put forth that book in the 
language of the people, he himself withdrew, 
and the light of God's truth alone shone out. 
He was impatient in his confinement how- 
ever, and determined to visit his friends in 
Wittenberg, if only for a day or two that he 
might become more fully acquainted with 
whatever might be transpiring there. 

We can easily understand some of his im- 
patience and anxiety when we consider how 
much he had suffered and dared in behalf of 
the new movement; how his very life was 
wrapped up in it, and how little news could 
reach him as to the progress of that move- 
ment. So in the latter part of November, 
1521, he left the Wartburg, dressed in the 
garb of a knight. On the way at an inn he 
was suspected of being Luther by some of 
his friends, but was unmolested, and reached 
Wittenberg Dec. 1st. 

He remained three days, spending most 
of his time at the house of Hieronymous 
Schruff, where he received from Melancthon, 
Justus Jonas, Amsdorf and Augustine 
Shruff, a narrative of all that had taken place 



100 WITTENBERG. 

since he left Wittenberg for the diet of 
Worms. He then returned to his castle 
prison, his heart cheered by this meeting with 
his friends, and by learning from them the 
progress the reformation had made. But 
this ray of sunshine which had fallen across 
his pathway was soon to be darkened by a 
cloud which was even then preparing to set- 
tle over Wittenberg. 

It was the closing month of 1521, that he 
returned with lightened mind and cheered 
heart, from the seat of strife to his home of 
confinement. On the twenty-seventh day of 
the same month the " New Prophets," (Ana- 
baptists) Storch, Thomas and Stubner, came 
to Wittenberg and claimed that God had sent 
them to teach the people. In consequence of 
the disorder that naturally arose in the dis- 
cussion of the Mass; monastic orders; the 
teachings of the Anabaptists, etc., many of 
the citizens were led astray and among them 
Carlstadt. Storch and his companions called 
on Melancthon for his views on their teach- 
ing, but he would not express a decided 
opinion concerning them. He was unsettled 
in his own mind as to what spirit might be 



WITTENBERG. 101 

directing them, and he desired to make no 
mistake by a decision which might after- 
ward prove wrong and also, because they said 
that they appealed to Luther and would be 
satisfied to leave the whole affair with him. 

They declared that revelation had been 
made to them directly from heaven ; that God 
had given them a special power for rightly 
interpreting the Scriptures; that the Turks 
would invade and conquer Germany; that 
the end of the world would come in a few 
years, and that at that time priests and all 
sinful men would be slain by the wrath of 
God through the medium of the Turks, and 
that only those who accepted the doctrines 
which they proclaimed would be saved." 

Such were their professions, and it is no 
wonder that Melancthon, with his conscien- 
tious nature, hesitated against taking a de- 
cided stand against them for fear of making 
an awful mistake and be found fighting 
against God. But that he was undecided 
proves to us that he was not ready to fall into 
error ; for he says : " There are indeed, ex- 
traordinary spirits in these men, but what 
spirits ? " 



102 WITTENBERG. 

The Elector also hesitated, and while he 
hesitated the excitement ran higher. It 
seemed that within the household of the ref- 
ormation itself an enemy had been turned 
loose to tear away its life. Pope and priest 
looked on in glee. Nero is said to have fid- , 
died and sung and danced while Rome was 
being enwrapped in flames and sinking in 
ashes to her destruction, and now the pontiff 
at Rome, and his servile tools throughout con- 
tinental Europe, were secretly laughing and 
rejoicing at the distractions that were raging 
within the bosom of the reformation; for 
they well knew that " A house divided against 
itself cannot stand." 

The citizens of Wittenberg who had the 
real interest of the reformation at heart be- 
gan to call for Luther, believing that he alone 
could quiet the disturbance. That call 
reached the Wartberg. Luther heard it and 
determined to risk all dangers ; go to Witten- 
berg at once ; quiet the minds of the now al- 
most distracted people and drive the disturb- 
ers from the town. He left his castle prison 
March 3, 1522, and reached the scene of 
turmoil the following Friday. 



WITTENBERG. 103 

Luther had attacked Rome with weapons 
forged from theological study. The revival 
of learning had prepared the way for that 
study, and he had based all his hopes for the 
advancement of truth and light upon the 
higher education (in a true sense) of the 
clergy, and through them of the people. But 
the " New Prophets" proclaimed that such 
education was unnecessary, and soon found 
followers in Wittenberg who took up this 
belief. Even Carlstadt, the oldest professor 
in the university, advised the students under 
his instruction to go home and take up the 
spade or guide the plow ; for so had the com- 
mandment gone forth that in the sweat of 
his face should man eat his bread. Others 
urged that as the new prophets were unedu- 
cated and yet were prophets from God, it 
was unnecessary for any of the clergy to be 
educated; that a mechanic or a farmer was 
as well fitted to preach and become a minister 
of the gospel as the most learned Doctor in 
the world. In short, that education had 
nothing to do with the work. 

This was sad news to Luther and he de- 
termined to battle against it. He had no 



104 WITTENBERG. 

fears as to the victory, for he who had con- 
quered the pontiff at Home and put his repre- 
sentatives to flight, could without fear enter 
the arena against such men as were preaching 
these doctrines. It was a bold step for Luther 
to take, however, with the edict of Worms still 
hanging over him, but he preached publicly 
the next Sunday in the old Town Church, on 
the subject of Patience, Charity, and Faith 
in God to finish the work He had begun. The 
building was crowded with earnest, anxious 
listeners and for eight days he continued to 
preach upon these themes, and succeeded in 
calling the people back from the extravagant 
teachings of the Anabaptists, who slunk away 
for a time into oblivion. 

At the end of the eighth day Luther had 
accomplished that for which he had left the 
Wartberg. He had quieted and set aright 
the excited and turbulent populace of the 
city which, a few days before, had tossed 
about as a restless sea. All was now calm 
and peaceful. His victory at Worms was 
not greater than that over these disturbers of 
God's household in his own home, and his 
power to lead back into the fold his straying 



WITTENBERG. 105 

sheep was a manifestation of as much great- 
ness as to defy the power of pope and em- 
peror. 

Luther brought with him from the Wart- 
berg, the manuscript of his translation of the 
Bible into German ; and now he and Melane- 
thon set diligently to work to revise and 
send it out book by book until a part, or fi- 
nally the whole, found its way into even the 
humblest households. It was published with- 
out name or title other than " The New 
Testament, German, Wittenberg." 

When Rome heard of this, a cry of anger 
went up from her walls which was echoed 
from cells of selfish monks, and re-echoed 
from the palace of the Emperor of Spain. 
For eight hundred years kings and rulers 
had bowed in humble submission to Rome 
with only one notable exception, Henry III, 
Emperor of Germany, who controlled church 
and state alike, independent of Rome. No 
throne seemed so secure as not to tremble 
when she spoke ; no will so strong as not to 
break or bend at the word of the pope. At 
his secret, and sometimes open command, 
nation moved against nation in battle array. 



106 WITTENBERG. 

At the sound of his voice the people had per- 
mitted themselves to be overshadowed by the 
darkness of ignorance; but now, Luther, a 
humble German monk, had risen to turn the 
tide and send the influence of the word of 
God thundering against the walls of the 
" Holy City/' and to beat vehemently at the 
very gates of the Vatican. 

Luther had been in Wittenberg after the 
Wartberg imprisonment a little more than 
three months when Henry VIII, of England, 
" Invincible king/' and future " Defender 
of the Faith," etc. etc., wrote his work de- 
fending the seven sacraments. Soon after 
this event Leo X died and was succeeded by 
Adrian VI, a native of Utrecht, who was at 
first mild toward the reformation, but who 
became a most cruel persecutor. 

In 1522, near the close of the year, Luther 
heard of the awful work which Charles V 
had begun in Antwerp. The gospel was be- 
ing preached with great power in the Antwerp 
Convent by several monks who had visited 
Wittenberg, and who had received through 
the teachings of Melancthon and Luther, a 
ray of the true light. Great crowds gathered 



WITTENBERG. 107 

to hear them. They were sick and dying of 
teachings and preachers who gave them noth- 
ing but glosses and formulas, and they were 
thirsting after the waters which flow from 
the gospels and the epistles. This proceed- 
ing was contrary to the desire of the pope, 
and Charles closed the convent, sold the 
sacred vessels, and many men and women 
who had so gladly listened to the word of life, 
were seized and thrown into prisons or dun- 
geons. 

Luther's heart was saddened. The Roman 
Church had now begun, and Luther pre- 
dicted that she would not stop her persecu- 
tions until she had shed the life blood of 
many who took their stand for Christ. This 
gloomy prediction was soon fulfilled. The 
closing of the convent and the throwing into 
dungeons of those who dared to differ from 
her, was only the preparation of more severe 
measures. 

On the first day of July, 1523, just a little 
more than two years after the diet at Worms, 
John Esch and Henry Voes, who had been 
preaching the new, yet old, old doctrine in 
Antwerp, were led to the stake and burnt be- 



108 WITTENBERG. 

cause they claimed that God alone had power 
to forgive sins, and that it was a false as- 
sumption of priest or pope to pretend to have 
such power in any degree. Thus were the 
first martyrs of the reformation called upon 
to yield up their lives for the truth. 

While Luther was filled with sorrow at 
this outbreak of persecution, he was also 
filled with a great joy at the brave, yet humble 
manner in which these youthful sufferers 
died, and at the witness they bore for Christ. 

The fagots which were now lighted in 
earnest at command of pope and Emperor, 
threw out the first gleaming of the great con- 
flagration that was rapidly approaching, and 
it is claimed that in three years, 1523 to 
1526, five hundred thousand Netherlanders, 
who confessed Christ above the pope, were 
slain by Charles V. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Osr September 14th, 1523, Adrian VI 
died, and was succeeded by Clement VII, who 
" thought only of upholding the papacy at 
whatever cost," and of "employing its re- 
sources for his own aggrandizement." He set 
to work at once in a determined effort to 
root out heresy and began a bloody persecu- 
tion throughout Germany. He filled the 
country with inquisitorial spies. The Peas- 
ant war broke out, against which Luther 
raised his voice. Charles raised the cry of 
" Down with the Lutherans." Cardinal 
Campagio, the wily instrument of the pope, 
was striving hard to divide Germany into 
two hostile parties by causing Germans to 
oppose Germans and thus bring about their 
own destruction. 

The diet of Ratisbon was held in June 

1524, and decided to enforce the edict of 

.Worms which, on account of the general de- 

109 



110 WITTENBERG. 

fiance of the people, had been a dead letter 
for three years. This council also decided to 
discard all married priests from the states 
represented in the council, and to recall all 
students of these states who were studying at 
Wittenberg or any other place infected with 
the principles of the reformation. 

On May fifth, 1525, Frederick the Elector 
and friend of the reformation as well as the 
protector of Luther, sank in death after re- 
ceiving communion in both kinds at the hands 
of his faithful chaplain Spalatin. Thus all 
things seemed to combine against Luther and 
his work. The fires of persecution were 
burning with fearful glow all over the 
Netherlands. Campagio was striving to 
stir up turmoil among the Germans to secure 
their division, and was all too successful in 
his attempts. Frederick had been almost ap- 
palled and driven to silence by a fearfully 
condemnatory brief from Adrian; the Em- 
peror had cried out for the suppression of the 
Lutherans ; the diet of Ratisbon had declared 
its intention of enforcing the edict of Worms 
which meant, if enforced, the death of the re- 
former upon whom clouds of a darker shadow 



WITTENBERG. m 

were now fallen through the death of Fred- 
erick. His soul was filled with anguish at 
this last stroke, and he cried out in bitter- 
ness : " Oh bitter death to all whom Fred- 
erick has left behind." 

At this time, and when the people were 
wondering where Luther would turn and 
what he would do, he did just what was not 
expected of him. He married, and took for 
his bride an ex-nun named Catherine Von 
Bora, a lady of great piety and noble family. 
Catherine had been in the convent of 
Nimptsch, near Grimma in Saxony, and with 
eight other nuns of the same institution, 
reasoning that it was against the teachings of 
Scripture and the prompting of conscience 
to live in seclusion and under such regula- 
tions, escaped from the monastery, and on 
April 7, 1523, arrived before the Augus- 
tinian Convent of Wittenberg. 

Luther was rejoiced over their action, and 
exclaimed that though this were not his doing, 
" would to God that I could thus rescue all 
captive consciences, and empty all cloisters." 
He found homes for them and becoming im- 
pressed with his duty to break still farther 



112 WITTENBERG. 

from Rome as well as to establish a home for 
himself, he was married to Catherine on June 
11, 1525. 

Rome had begun to believe that she was 
gaining ground, and was preparing to re- 
joice over the victory she was sure would soon 
be hers when the news of this act of Luther's 
reached her ears. It fell in the midst of the 
Vatican, and in the convents of lazy and 
abandoned monks as a death-dealing shell 
fired from the guns of a retreating enemy 
falls in the ranks of the pursuing army. It 
scattered dismay and terror on every hand. 
It raised a cry of horror from Rome and from 
convents all over the land. Calumny, blame, 
and denunciation were heaped upon Luther 
at every turn. Henry VIII, immoral as he 
was, exclaimed : " It is incest ! " but Melanc- 
thon came nobly to Luther's defence, declar- 
ing that there was " nothing improper or 
contrary to the teachings of the Scripture in 
his actions." 

It cannot be doubted that, in the face of all 
opposition, this marriage of Luther and Cath- 
erine, a monk and a nun, opened many con- 
vents of both sexes and caused hundreds of 



WITTENBERG. 113 

men and women whose lives had been well 

nigh burlesques, to go out into the world to 

establish happy homes ; to fill honorable and 

useful positions in society, and to do a real 

service for God as well as man; in short, to 

fill their rightful places in the world. 

No wonder that Rome raised the cry of 

anger and alarm. No wonder that that cry 

was echoed throughout the land from walls 

of pope-ridden cloisters, for this daring monk 

had one by one, set aside all the laws, rules, 

commands and customs of the Holy Roman 

Catholic Church with which he did not agree. 

First on October 31, 1517, the theses which 

he nailed on the church door in Wittenberg 

openly denounced the corruption of priest 

and church, and ridiculed and condemned 

the sale of indulgences, thus stirring up the 

people to resist this robbery, and as a result 

stopping one of the principal channels of gain 

which had for many years flowed into the 

coffers of Rome. Second; on December 10, 

1520, by openly defying the ecclesiastical 

power of the pope and publicly burning the 

" bull" sent against him, accompanied with 

all the anathemas of Leo X. He thus lessened 
8 



114 WITTENBEKG. 

the fear of the Roman curse and excom- 
munication in the hearts of the German peo- 
ple. 

Third; in June, 1521, David Zwiling, a for- 
mer monk of the Wittenberg convent de- 
clared publicly that it was sacrilege to wor- 
ship the host; and claimed that all members 
of the church had perfect right to receive the 
sacraments under both kinds; and also de- 
nounced in strong terms, the whole system of 
monastic orders. Communion under both 
kinds had actually been administered in the 
church. Fourth ; the town council of Witten- 
berg, in conjunction with the faculty of the 
university, took action to regulate the Lord's 
Supper regardless of desire or command of 
pope or priest. 

Thus the organization of the Eoman 
Church was being undermined, and the mass, 
Rome's stronghold, fell, and with it much of 
the worship of priest, pope and church. 
Fifth; in 1522, Luther braved the ban of 
Emperor and pope, returned to Wittenberg, 
and with the aid of Melancthon, in direct 
opposition to the will of Emperor and pope, 
scattered all over the land the Scriptures 



WITTENBERG. 115 

printed in the common language of the peo- 
ple and thus placed within their hands the 
light of that truth so much dreaded by Eome 
even to this day. And now, as the sixth and 
last act of open defiance, Luther, a monk, 
enters the marriage state, and takes for his 
wife a woman who had been a nun. 

But Luther cared little for Rome's howls 
of rage; her excommunications or her ana- 
themas. He had followed the dictates of 
his conscience as it had been illuminated by 
the Holy Scriptures and guided by the Holy 
Spirit He knew that he was right, and the 
raging of the Roman Church was not to turn 
him aside. The monk had become a Chris- 
tian; he had left the cell, the cowl and the 
old worn out lifeless husk of idleness, seclu- 
sion and superstition; he had completely 
severed his connection with the papal church, 
and had entered fully upon the beauties of 
active usefulness. 

By his marriage he transformed the lonely 
Augustinian convent into a home; and the 
happy voices of children, offspring of former 
priest and nun, were heard ringing joyously 
through those old stone halls where, not many 



116 WITTENBERG. 

years before, had been heard the chanting of 
monks; the dreary echo of their footsteps 
along the stony pavement below, and the 
groans of those who were afflicting their 
bodies in vain effort to purify their souls. 

Mrs. Luther was as courageous, self-sacri- 
ficing, as desirous of the growth of the ref- 
ormation and as willing to submit all things 
to the direction and will of God as was her 
husband. This was clearly shown in 1527, 
when Luther was taken so sick that he thought 
he would have to leave his beloved Catherine 
a widow, with little Hans, a baby. He sadly 
reminded her that he had nothing to leave 
her save some silver tankards which had been 
presented him by some friends, but she 
bravely replied : " Dear Doctor, if it be 
God's will, then I choose that you be with 
Him rather than with me. It is not so much 
I or my children even that need you, as the 
multitude of pious Christians. Trouble not 
yourself about me." 

His home life was a happy one ; but it was 
not without its clouds, for in May, 1527, his 
second child, Elizabeth, died, and his letters 
to friends written soon after, reveal how sick 



WITTENBERG. 117 

and sore it had left his heart. In Dec. 1542, 
the shadow again fell across his threshold, 
and his oldest child died, yet in the midst of 
it all he never raised a murmur against Him 
who had permitted the affliction to come. 

Luther had many dark days in Wittenberg, 
but the darkest of all, perhaps, was when the 
Elector Frederick, in 1518, had no power to 
interpose in his behalf, and for a moment felt 
under the necessity of banishing him from 
the domain. Luther had, under his instruc- 
tions, prepared to leave Wittenberg, and was 
turning his face toward France as the most 
desirable place of refuge. On the evening 
which he had arranged for his departure, he 
was sitting with some friends at a sort of 
farewell supper when a messenger came from 
Frederick urging him to hasten away, and 
asking why he lingered so long. 

This was a sad message. His former pro- 
tector, his beloved Frederick, had cast him 
off and begrudged him even a few moments' 
farewell intercourse with friends. It seemed 
to be the last blow to crush the bleeding heart ; 
the last fury of the tempest to break the 
bended reed. He felt it in all its power and 



118 WITTENBERG. 

keenness, but instantly rose above the trials 
of the hour and was preparing to depart when 
the tide suddenly changed, and a second mes- 
sage was received which asked Luther to re- 
main, at least for the present, in Wittenberg. 

Another painful trial was his conflict with 
Erasmus, who was urged by pope, Emperor 
Charles V, and Henry VIII, to join their 
ranks and attack Luther with the pen, 
Luther urged Erasmus to desist ; to do noth- 
ing ; to remain idle as to the reformation etc. 
etc., butinl525, in spite of these urgings and 
much waverings between two opinions, Eras- 
mus published his " Freedom of the Will " 
which was immediately answered and refuted 
by Luther in his " Bondage of the Will." 

This conflict was long and bitter, and was 
all the harder for Luther, as Erasmus had 
really prepared the way for the reformation 
in Germany by his bitter sarcasm against the 
whole papal system, and also because on ac- 
count of this very fact, Luther had hoped that 
Erasmus would cast in his influence finally 
and wholly with the reformation. 

Erasmus did not favor the Roman church, 
which made it all the harder for him. He de- 



WITTENBERG. 119 

sired reform, but of a more moderate type 
than that advocated by Luther, and on De- 
cember 6th, 1520, four days before the burn- 
ing of the papal bull, in a letter to the legate 
Campagio, he stated that he had perceived 
that the better, the more learned and Chris- 
tian a man was, the less he was Luther's 
enemy. Yet Erasmus was a moral and men- 
tal coward, and cast his voice and influence 
with the hierarchy simply because he feared 
the great odds that were arrayed against the 
reformation. 

Luther was conqueror in this as well as in 
so many other conflicts, and Erasmus, driven 
to what he did by pope, bishop, emperor and 
king, seems never to have been fully satisfied 
by the position he had taken. 

In 1525, while at Wittenberg, Luther 
received news of the martyrdom of Leclerc, 
the first victim of the reformation in France, 
who was burnt in Metz. The fires had not 
yet subsided in the Netherlands, though thou- 
sands of lives had been yielded up in the 
flames, and now they were to break forth 
anew in all the fury of Roman persecution 
in France. Luther well knew that the burn- 



120 WITTENBERG. 

ing of Leclerc was only the advance signal 
of hundreds of such fires that would soon 
throw the dark shadows of shame across the 
pages of papal history. 

It was from Wittenberg, also, that Luther 
entered into the sacramental controversy with 
Zwingli, which resulted in the conference of 
Marburg in October, 1529. This confer- 
ence really did nothing toward settling the 
difference, but during the discussion Luther 
showed his impetuosity — and may we not say 
his narrowness — by not only refusing to 
accede to the opinion of Zwingli and others, 
but by actually refusing to part with them 
as brothers in Christ, though with tears they 
earnestly supplicated him to do so. 

Thus the years rolled on, surging with 
mighty events, the storm raging more furi- 
ously now, and then again growing calmer, 
but having always for its center this little 
town, and in this town the fearless monk who 
defied the power of the Emperor, thrust aside 
the attack of " The Invincible King of Eng- 
land," and cast into the flames the dreadful 
weapon of the pope. 

With slight breaks here and there, the re- 



WITTENBERG. J21 

mainder of his life was spent in Wittenberg, 
but he was not to die there. His old enemy, 
Charles V, on account of fear from the 
threatened Turkish invasion, was compelled 
by his subjects to make peace with Luther; 
else, they said : " they would withhold their 
support from him in his endeavor to stop the 
tide of Solomon's invasion." But around 
him, whom anathemas and bulls from Rome, 
diets at home and edicts of Emperors could 
not move, the clouds which no man can dis- 
pel or escape, were rapidly gathering. 

While suffering from poverty and over- 
work, he was called from Wittenberg to his 
old home to settle a dispute concerning cer- 
tain rights of church patronage that had 
arisen between the Mansfield brothers, upon 
whose estate he had been born in 1483: 
November 10, just thirty-seven years and one 
month bfore he burnt the papal bull. He 
left Wittenberg January 23d, 1546, and said 
to his wife as he was leaving, that he " could 
lie down on his death-bed with joy if he could 
first see his dear Lords Mansfield reconciled." 

These brothers had sent an urgent appeal 
for him to come and settle the difficulty, for 



122 WITTENBERG, 

his was now regarded as the warmest heart 
and the clearest head in the land, and 
people in all kinds of trouble, whether of 
body, mind or soul, turned to him for relief. 
In due time he reached Eisleben and a few 
days later wrote his wife that his work had 
been accomplished and the difficulty adjusted. 
But he was not to look again upon the face of 
his beloved Catherine ; for between the hours 
of two and three o'clock on the morning of 
Feb. 18th, the messenger came and bore away 
the spirit of the great reformer. 

He who, sixty-three years before, lay there 
as a helpless babe, was now lying there in the 
same town, helpless in death and in the house 
opposite the church in which he had been 
baptised when an infant ; and the little town 
whose inhabitants had so many years before 
listened to his sweet childish voice had, by 
this peculiar combination of circumstances, 
received him back unto herself in his dying 
hours. His work was done, but how great 
was that work ! His life on earth was ended, 
but how full of moment had been that life, 
most of which had been spent in the little 
German town of Wittenberg. 



WITTENBERG. 123 

Eisleben is distant from Wittenberg about 
fifty miles, but the Elector, John the Con- 
stant, at whose disposal the body was placed, 
decided that it should be buried in the 
Schloss Kirche of Wittenberg, where his 
voice had so often been heard in defence of 
the truth. 

The Counts Mansfield accompanied the re- 
mains from Eisleben to their final resting 
place. Bells tolled in every village and town 
through which they passed; while magis- 
trates, clergy and people of all classes, young 
and old, met them at the city gates, clad in 
mourning and singing funeral hymns. As 
they moved along the rough country roads 
men and women, and even children, came 
from farm homes, from forests and fields, 
and with aching hearts and weeping eyes 
joined the solemn cortege which proceeded 
to the church w 7 here his body was committed 
to the dust. 

At Wittenberg the people gathered around 
the casket, and with choked and sobbing voices 
joined in singing one of Luther's own Hymns, 
— " I Journey Hence in Peace." 

Thus it was that this silent, cold body of 
a once poor peasant, poor priest and poor, but 



124 WITTENBERG, 

ever rich reformer, was borne through the 
Thuringian country, followed by Electors, 
Lords, Counts, Magistrates, Clergy and peas- 
ants, to find its last resting place in the 
Palace Church of Wittenberg. That body 
which had found no rest in life, now found it 
under the peaceful wing of death. 

How different was Luther's work from that 
of Henry VIII. This great king of England 
passed away and his life stands a record of 
shame before the world. The darts he sent 
across the waters to Wittenberg, fell without 
effect on the reformer; and his action only 
revealed more clearly to coming ages the 
greatness of the humble monk in the princi- 
ples he represented and the littleness of the 
great king, " The most invincible of England 
and Lord of Ireland." 

The book of this miffhtv king; which was 
presented to Leo X, with so much pride and 
received by Leo with so much ceremony, and 
on account of which the latter gave to Henry 
the title of " Defender of the Faith," is now 
known generally only in history; while the 
works of Luther, especially his wrenching the 
Bible from the dark corners of monasteries 



WITTENBERG. 125 

and translating it into the language of the 
people, is living in all parts of Christendom 
to-day. The one was the work of man, ac- 
complished solely for man's glory ; the other 
was also the work of man, but it was led by 
the Spirit of God, for God's glory and the up- 
lifting of mankind. 

How different the death of Luther from 
that of his old enemy, Tetzel, who died in 
Leipzic July 14, 1519, it is said, of a broken 
heart, having been severely reprimanded and 
suspended by the papal ambassador, Karl Yon 
Miltetz. The indulgences he so eagerly sold, 
though strong enough, according to his preach- 
ing, to cleanse from all past and future sins, 
were not strong enough to bind up his own 
broken and bleeding heart. But while he 
was dying, despised and neglected by the 
prelate and pope, surrounded only by a few 
idle priests who could give him no ray of 
light in the deep darkness that was over- 
shadowing him, his eyes blinded as to the 
future, his lips uttering : " I see nothing 
but darkness," a letter was handed him that 
gave his wavering soul light and hope. 

It was from Luther, and though those 



126 WITTENBERG. 

around him were surprised that TetzePs great- 
est enemy should thus insult his dying hour, 
Tetzel himself cried out : " Eead ! Read ! " 
The letter was read to him ; and in it Luther 
spoke only words of comfort, of pardon, and 
preached unto him the forgiveness of sins 
through Jesus Christ, and Him alone; and 
that through Him also came the resurrection 
in hope. The letter gave light and comfort, 
and the former seller of indulgences, the blind 
papist, saw the Gospel as he had never seen 
it before, and cried out with his last sigh: 
" The night is gone ; the morning breaks." 

How different Luther's death from that of 
Leo X, who had hurled all the anathemas of 
the Roman church at the uncovered head of 
the poor Wittenberg monk! This pope 
reigned about nine years, then died suddenly, 
it is supposed by many, of poison, in 1522, 
without time to take the holy sacrament. As 
lie was borne to his last resting place the 
people gathered around shouting : " Thou 
earnest in like a fox, thou hast ruled like a 
lion, thou hast died like a dog." The one 
was like the triumphal march of a victor ; the 




INTERIOR OF PALACE CHURCH. 

Graves of Lather and Melaricthon, Right and Left of 

Foreground. 



WITTENBERG, 127 

other was the slinking away of a dark and 
blackened character. 

The world to-day bows in grateful recog- 
nition by the tomb of the humble reformer 
whose dust lies quietly in yonder church of 
Wittenberg, but his work still lives, and his 
words : " Here I stand, I can do no other, 
God help me," spoken in humility and yet 
with bravery before the diet of Worms, have 
sounded down the centuries and stimulated 
thousands of Christians to nobler aims and 
more heroic deeds than they would otherwise 
ever have experienced. 

We left Wittenberg at noon, and with 
much regret turned away from the place 
fraught with so much interest to the great 
family of mankind. We passed through the 
Elster Thor, took a last look at the oak under 
which Luther burnt the papal bull, and were 
soon whirled away on the train, but we still 
thought of the town we were leaving far be- 
hind us, and believed that as long as there 
is a Wittenberg ; " as long as man can strug- 
gle upward toward God ; " as long as his heart 
can glow with holy indignation against wrong 
and persecution, as long as his soul can 



128 WITTENBERG. 

swell in sympathy for the great and the good ; 
as long as he can appreciate a good work done 
in his behalf; so long will man stand with 
uncovered heads by the tomb of Luther in the 
Palace Church in Wittenberg. 



DEC 6 1906 



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